Five decades since changing the world of horror forever, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre not only has a new movie and new television series in development, but also an upcoming adaptation that will see Tobe Hooper's seminal masterpiece reimagined through one of animation's rarest artistic disciplines.
Dark Sky Films and Exurbia Films have today announced that a hand-animated rotoscoped version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is currently in production, aiming for a 2027 release.
The project is being led by Animation Director and Art Director Paul Beck, an Austin-based multimedia artist whose collaborations with acclaimed filmmaker Richard Linklater helped redefine modern rotoscoping. Beck served as a lead animator on Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, and has exhibited his paintings, sculptures, films, and video installations internationally in New York, Berlin, Brazil, Croatia, and Romania.
For the unfamiliar, rotoscoping is a pioneering animation technique that was used in early Disney classics like Snow White and Cinderella, as well as and animated features including The Lord of the Rings, Heavy Metal, and Fire and Ice. Animators trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame. An official press release elaborates, assuring that the filmmakers are embracing the meticulous craftsmanship that has defined rotoscoping for more than a century. Artists manually trace key frames before isolating and compositing individual visual elements, giving them complete creative control over every movement, expression, texture, and shadow while preserving the realism of the original performances.
Best of all, because human-made art will always reign superior, the Texas Chain Saw Massacre animation will be created without the use of any artificial intelligence garbage.
Here's what Beck has to say of the upcoming version:
“The original Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a masterpiece that changed cinema forever […] Our goal is to honor its legacy by reimagining it through the timeless art of hand-drawn rotoscoping, giving audiences a completely new way to experience a film they thought they already knew.”
If you're heading to any of Fathom and Dark Sky Films' Texas Chain Saw Massacre Day celebrations across the country on August 18, you can get a look at a behind-the-scenes featurette that includes a sneak peek of hand-animated footage from the film while production is still underway. Stay tuned for more as we get it.
