Leatherface Gets Animated: First Look at the Hand-Drawn Texas Chain Saw Massacre Reimagining Revealed

Texas Chain Saw Day returns August 18 with exclusive rotoscoped footage, a creepy new theatrical audio experience, 4K screenings, and live Q&As with original cast and crew

Yo, horror fam, this one is wild in the best possible way. Dark Sky Films and Exurbia Films have officially pulled back the curtain on the first still from their upcoming hand-animated, rotoscoped reimagining of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and if Leatherface already gave you nightmares in live action, somebody might want to leave a light on for this one.

The project, currently targeted for a 2027 release, takes Hooper’s 1974 horror masterpiece and rebuilds its imagery frame by frame through traditional rotoscoping. No quick filter, no push-button animation gimmick, and according to the production, no artificial intelligence. Artists are tracing the original live-action footage entirely by hand, preserving the performances and grime-soaked atmosphere while transforming the movie into something visually brand new.

Dark Sky and Exurbia dropped the first official still ahead of Texas Chain Saw Day on August 18, 2026, when fans will get their first real taste of the project beyond a single image. During nationwide theatrical screenings of the original film, audiences will see an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette exploring how the rotoscoping process works, along with additional hand-animated footage from the movie while production is still underway.

And here’s the catch, because horror fans love a little pain with their pleasure. The footage will only be shown in theaters during Texas Chain Saw Day. So if you’re thinking, “I’ll just catch it on YouTube later,” nah, chief. At least for now, the theater is the spot.

Dark Sky Films and Fathom Entertainment are bringing the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre back to theaters nationwide in a new 4K presentation for one night only on August 18, the date permanently burned into the mythology of the film. More than five decades later, Hooper’s nasty little Texas nightmare still refuses to sit quietly in the corner, and frankly, why should it?

The evening is getting even more twisted thanks to Dread Central, Be Afraid Media, and the Creepy podcast, which have created an original four-minute theatrical audio experience specifically for the event. Narrated by Creepy creator Jon Grilz and members of his narration team, the prologue revisits the fictional horrors of August 18, 1974, dropping moviegoers straight into the nightmare before Leatherface even gets that chainsaw singing.

Like the animation preview, this ain’t something being tossed online five minutes after the credits roll. The audio experience was produced exclusively for the August 18 screenings, meaning the people sitting inside those theaters are getting something made specifically for them. In an era where damn near everything eventually lands on your phone, making part of the experience genuinely theatrical gives horror fans a reason to get off the couch and back into a dark room full of strangers. Which, considering the movie we’re talking about, sounds perfectly appropriate.

Fans in Los Angeles and Austin are getting even more meat on the bone. Following the screening at Regal LA Live!, legendary cinematographer Daniel Pearl, whose photography helped give the original film its sweaty, sun-baked nightmare aesthetic, will participate in a live Q&A. Over in Austin at AMC Barton Creek, original cast members Teri McMinn and Allen Danziger will take the stage following the film, with special guest moderators for both events still to be announced.

Behind the animated reimagining is Paul Beck, serving as Animation Director and Art Director. The Austin-based multimedia artist has serious rotoscoping credentials through collaborations with Richard Linklater on projects including Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood. Beck is joined by Lead Animator Max Peake, Lead Animator and Special FX Artist Nate Bayless, and Background Artist Jeremy Martinez.

That’s the part making this project especially interesting. Nobody is trying to erase what Tobe Hooper made in 1974 or slap some shiny modern coat over it and call it revolutionary. The goal appears to be taking the exact performances, tension, ugliness, and sweaty panic already living inside the original footage and filtering it through another painstaking artistic medium. When rotoscoping is done right, reality starts feeling just a little unstable, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was already unstable as hell before anybody picked up a pencil.

The original movie’s place in horror history barely needs explaining. Hooper took a small budget, Texas heat, a house full of lunatics, and one seriously pissed-off chainsaw and created one of the most influential horror films ever made. Fifty-plus years later, filmmakers are still borrowing from its grime, realism, sound design, camera work, and complete refusal to make the audience comfortable.

Now Dark Sky Films and Exurbia Films are betting there is another way to experience that nightmare without replacing the thing that made it legendary in the first place. If this first look is any indication, 2027 could deliver one of the strangest and most fascinating reinterpretations of a horror classic we’ve seen in a minute.

Texas Chain Saw Day takes place nationwide on August 18, 2026, with participating theaters screening The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 4K alongside the exclusive animated preview and theatrical audio experience. Tickets are available now through participating theater box offices and Fathom Entertainment.

For more on the companies behind the event and the new audio experience, visit Dark Sky Films, Fathom Entertainment, and Be Afraid Media.

Leatherface in hand-drawn rotoscope? Yeah, horror just found another way to make a chainsaw look dangerous.

The Crusade Never Ends!