Remember When: Chester Bennington Starred in “Saw 3D”

Back in the 2000s the Saw horror series was all the rage—seven movies released across seven successive Halloweens that collectively grossed nearly $900 million worldwide. Later, in 2017, the series was slowly resurrected again. Nobody who made an ‘80s horror franchise probably ever thought this would have been possible back then. But the genre experienced a 21st century boom that legitimized it as a box office bonanza that continues today.

Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington loved Saw from the get-go—in 2010, he proclaimed the original to be the greatest horror film ever made—and he claimed to have seen every installment on opening day. As gruesome fortune would have it, one of his bandmate’s neighbors was series co-producer Mark Burg. When Burg learned the singer was a fan, he asked if he wanted to be in one of the movies. Naturally, the eager Bennington said yes right away, so the producer and Saw 3D director Kevin Greutert found a way to incorporate him into that seventh film in the franchise.

It was a hell of a scene. Bennington played a white supremacist named Evan who awakens shirtless in a car in an auto body garage with his back Krazy Glued to the driver’s side of the front seat. An 8-track tape pops into the stereo with someone replicating the late Jigsaw’s voice (he died at the end of Saw III) explaining his quandary. Because of his terrible crimes and that his friends follow his mindless lead, he has only 30 seconds to rip himself from his seat to reach the red handle on the car hood or the vehicle will drop from jacks, race forward, and the four miscreants, all of them bound and either attached to or close to the car in harm’s way, will die in gruesome ways. We’ll spare you the details. Despite his best efforts, Evan fails. If you dare to see what happens, the scene is in the video below.

A Challenging Cameo

This is a classic Jigsaw moral payback scene and typical Saw torture porn—it’s not subtle and not for the faint of heart. Despite being a huge fan of the series, Bennington found doing the cameo to be a challenge.

“It was a little more difficult than I expected, because my character isn’t like a thread that comes in and out of the film,” Bennington told RedLPClipTV in 2010. “I can’t really give too much away, but it took a lot for me to figure out how to portray this guy and what exactly his motives were going to be throughout the scene. It really came down to the fact that I’m in a sticky situation in this scene, and I don’t have much time, so I got to figure some s–t out real quick. It really just came down to me screaming.”

Many fans have noted that Chester’s screams were perfect for this scene. It probably didn’t hurt that he was already used to venting his angst by screaming on stage, so he probably just channeled more of it into this one moment. He was very effective as a Jigsaw victim.

Kudos from the Director

“Chester was great,” Greutert told me in 2010. “He was performing a role that I think would have been challenging for any actor because he was shirtless while we shot over the course of several nights in the winter in Toronto. It was freezing cold, and everyone else was wearing parkas and boots and rain gear, and here was Chester literally glued into the front seat of a car. I don’t know how he didn’t freeze to death, but he was literally attached to the front seat of this El Camino for hours, and he literally couldn’t take a bathroom break during that whole time. Not that he needed to wear diapers or anything like that, but it was very challenging for him as an actor. He did a fantastic job, and I was very happy that he was in the scene. He’s a great guy.”

What’s strange about watching the scene now is that close to a decade later, Bennington took his own life by hanging himself. He was only 41 years old. At least in his time on earth he passionately performed music that many of his fans deeply related to it, and he also got to cameo in a sequel to his favorite fear flick. Nevertheless, it now resonates on a strange level due to his passing.

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Photo by Lions Gate/Kobal/Shutterstock