Creator: David Firth
I wanted to do a series, maybe it's not a film film but you can easily watch it all together and get an hours worth of footage in which you can see some sort of a storyline forming. I personally only saw a storyline which came from me intensely watching The Film Theorists theory on this series over and over again because I apparently have no life anymore if that's all I'm gonna fuckin' do. Side note, not bashing that channel, they're great love 'em go look at them if you've not already.
How am I going to talk about the series then? I have no idea, I could just do my overall thoughts on it or I could do thoughts on each episode and then talk about it overall. Probably going to do the latter. Fuck, I don't know shit. Ok, grab a brew and let's get into it.
Episode one: Spoons.
I remember the first time I ever saw this, I was in my year 9 R.E class and all we ever did that year was watch films and discuss the religious element in these films. Every film we watched, it was blatantly obvious with the religious themes eg Bruce Almighty but sometimes towards the end of class, if we'd covered everything we needed to, our teacher would let us fuck about on Youtube and that is where I was first introduced to our leafy green friend. I won't lie to you, I was disturbed. Watching this...thing on the interactive whiteboard run it's fingers over rusty spoons and kettles made me so uncomfortable. The background music and the soft, high-pitched voice only added to the discomfort. This feeling was definitely not shaken when I watched it again for notes. It was duller than it was before, but it was still there. Overall I thought this short episode was a bit creepy and definitely still uncomfortable.
Episode two: Friends.
I hated this episode. It took the uncomfortable feeling from the first episode and just dialled it up, but I did notice some things about Salad Fingers himself. He has hair on his fingers. I don't know why I thought that was important to note down but it was important. Maybe it's because it just seemed a little strange that a character known as Salad Fingers has hair on them, is the salad mouldy? I don't know like I said, I just thought it was important. Why have I said that this was the one dialled up the discomfort factor? There's a strange tonal shift in this episode. There's a moment in which Salad traps a child in the oven, seemingly innocently as he says that he is cooking a fish but can't reach it. Salad sticks a nail through his finger, tells us how he loves when the "red water" comes out, he then passes out and we see his dream of being in a butcher's refrigerator, with slabs of meat hanging everywhere. He runs into his puppet friend Hubert Cumberdale (remember that name) who proceeds to scream at him. He wakes up and ignores the burning child in the oven. The most uncomfortable thing for me was seeing the nail go through the finger and a ghostly pale Salad passing out. That and the child murder. I definitely thought that so far, this was the most uncomfortable episode.
Episode three: Nettles.
Definitely a very sexually charged episode. Probably a little too sexual for me at least. Don't get me wrong I'm not a prude and I definitely won't say anything against people's sexual tastes and such but I have my limits. And seeing a green mutant...creature? I guess is what he is, I'm not sure. Seeing that talk about
Quote: "Enjoying the pleasures of nettles", rubbing them over his nipples causing him to lactate while an armless zombie watches him. The sexual overtone is really obvious and adds to the already uncomfortable tone that was already established in the first two episodes. That's about it. Weirdly sexual for some reason. Next episode.
Episode four: Cage.
Or as I like to call it, the episode starring my best friend's unborn demon child. God, I'm horrible but I swear that thing's gonna come out evil. This episode honestly seems like more of a reaction to being a parent or being in a lifetime commitment. I'm not sure, it just seems that way to me, probably because of my intense binge watching of Film Theorists and that's a part of it. This was actually the most underwhelming episode with it just being a little odd and not really upping the intensity of the series that, at this point, I was expecting.
Episode five: Picnic.
This was more surreal than anything else. I feel like this was taking less of an uncomfortable, disturbing direction, and takes more of a surreal, disturbing direction. I had no idea what was going on with this, it starts with Salad on the phone of which the cable is cut so he obviously isn't talking to anybody yet he's trying to organise a picnic. We then see him in a wedding dress. Has nothing to do with this episode so I won't dwell on it. Next, we see Salad at the picnic and a little girl approaches him and sits down, joining the picnic. Salad then says Quote: "I shall elect you as my new playmate" which gives off a certain sort of feel. The sort of feel where you see someone strange hanging out outside the primary school gates. You're not entirely too sure about what this person's intent is but you probably wouldn't let your kid be around them unsupervised y'know? Back to the episode, the girl starts to talk with a similar voice to our green protagonist and this, rightfully so, freaks him out and he retreats back to his house and hides in the corner. I'm not sure what angle this episode was going for, in fact, I'm not even sure it was going for an angle at all. It just seemed really surreal. Maybe the girl triggered a traumatic memory in his subconscious? I don't know. I did like this episode, even if it seemed a little lacking in a direction.
Episode six: Present.
This was by far, the most disgusting of the ten episodes of the series. Salad eats one of his friends, comes across the dirtiest toilet I've ever seen and proceeds to stick his hand down it, proclaiming there is enough water in it to wash his petticoat. He gets home and sees himself sat in a chair, staring at him disapprovingly. The version of Salad that is sat down speaks to the version of himself that has just walked in, calling him Jeremy Fisher, the friend previously eaten by Salad himself. We then see him actually speaking to Jeremy Fisher, who is now back as a finger puppet and no longer eaten. Salad then says Quote: "I never did get to sample the delights of your flavour" as he brings his hand up to...I guess re-eat Jeremy, there's a cut and we see Salad eating his own brain. It's fucking disgusting. I didn't like this one. It kept some of the strangeness that seemed to be coming out in the previous episode but went to a gross level with it. Maybe this has something to do with mental health and how your own "bad thoughts" eat at you. Either way, this was gross.
Episode seven: Shore Leave.
This episode is just a bit odd. Salad finds what he thinks to be his brother who is back from the great war on shore leave. The episode follows a fairly straightforward plot. He spends time with his brother, sends him back into the trenches after crying about having to say goodbye to his brother. We then see what I'm assuming is a flashback to Salad being a performer, singing We'll Meet Again, a song from the first world war which was meant to give the wives hope that their husbands would return safely. Salad then has a diva tantrum and glides off the stage. I make note of the gliding as he's also wearing the dress I mentioned from an earlier episode. People tend to say that brides "glide down the aisle" which I think is the point being referenced when Salad glides off the stage rather than walks. Either that or they just couldn't animate him walking. Overall this was a fairly run of the mill episode that was just kind of boring.
Episode eight: Cupboard.
This was a very interesting episode as it's the first episode where I realised that the animation had gotten better, Salad Fingers now has nails and it seems to follow the idea of domestic abuse. Roger (the radio) can get a "little uppity" when he hasn't had his "sustenance" maybe a metaphor for getting violent when he's not wasted? Roger then starts screaming leading to Salad hiding in his safety cupboard. He plays with his hands and is possibly reenacting something from memory, where he is being berated for having skinny long legs and therefore won't be sold something. Maybe this is something that Roger has said to him? The episode takes a gross turn when Salad finds a hair and runs across his eyeball. He adds this to his collection of hairs on the wall. We then see him in bed with Hubert Cumberdale, another of Salad's finger puppet friends and he just flicks the poor thing out of the bed and into the poo bucket, then gets angry at him for being messy. It turns out, however, that Salad is done with Rogers abusive behaviour and threatens to kick him out, only for Roger to demand that Salad cleans the house. Salad refuses. Roger repeatedly says "do it now" leading to Salad eating his hair collection and hiding in the safety cupboard. This has a very strong feel of domestic abuse and ends on a very sad note making it hard to not sympathise with this child murdering creature.
Episode nine: Letter.
The episode where Salad gives birth to...fucking something and names it Yvonne. I don't like this one simply because of that. Salad thinks he's about to die, gives birth Alien chest burst style and gives it the same name as my mother. He then washes a window with the baby after saying he can't take care of it because his health is deteriorating. He also writes a letter with his skinned finger saying he can't go to the war today because he still feels a bit shit. I don't know maybe I'm just bitter about the "baby" having the same name as my mum but I just didn't like it.
Episode ten: Birthday.
Definitely the most graphic and disturbing episode of them all. A horse from an earlier episode is brought back and brutally slaughtered by a weird doctor with claws for hands. That shit's not done off screen either, you seem this doctor hacking away at the horse and it's fucking crying. It's looking into the camera and crying. Salad then heads home to find his now dead zombie friend as a pile of bones, surrounded by other horses. Salad blames the horses for skinning his friend and kicks them out, only to find a table of extremely deformed versions of himself sat at a table and I don't know which of those things is scarier. There are two eating brains, one with a more disconnected mouth than the other, there's one eating, what I'm assuming to be a mushy brain, out of a cup which later smashes its fists on the table and screeches. It's mouth coming way out of its face giving it a very normal yet freakish look. Another one is just smashing its fist on the table, it seems to have been doing this for a while considering its hand is bloody and there are blood stains on the white table cloth. It has no jaw. The final one I won't be able to describe other than faceless. We never see its face throughout its screen time which an argument could be made saying that's why it's the scariest. A person's imagination can run away with possibilities more dramatic than what may actually be. By far this was the scariest of all the episodes.
So that's what I thought of the episodes separately, but how do I feel overall? I thought that this was a very good series. The animation got better over time, it got stranger over time and it definitely got creepier over time. Yes, some episodes didn't even hit the creepy mark but overall it built it up nicely. Another thing I loved about it was it was creative and it's own thing. It didn't go diving into a coherent backstory for the protagonist which fit for this sort of thing. It's pretty damn good. You can watch all the episodes on youtube, separately or all together. In total the run time is about an hour. Maybe if you want a decent theory on the subject then check out The Film Theorists video's on it. I wouldn't recommend showing this to any young children, especially episodes 2, 3, 6, 9 and 10.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how this series made you feel. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you enjoy this series then go and support its creator by checking out his Youtube Channel and other works.
I wanted to do a series, maybe it's not a film film but you can easily watch it all together and get an hours worth of footage in which you can see some sort of a storyline forming. I personally only saw a storyline which came from me intensely watching The Film Theorists theory on this series over and over again because I apparently have no life anymore if that's all I'm gonna fuckin' do. Side note, not bashing that channel, they're great love 'em go look at them if you've not already.
How am I going to talk about the series then? I have no idea, I could just do my overall thoughts on it or I could do thoughts on each episode and then talk about it overall. Probably going to do the latter. Fuck, I don't know shit. Ok, grab a brew and let's get into it.
Episode one: Spoons.
I remember the first time I ever saw this, I was in my year 9 R.E class and all we ever did that year was watch films and discuss the religious element in these films. Every film we watched, it was blatantly obvious with the religious themes eg Bruce Almighty but sometimes towards the end of class, if we'd covered everything we needed to, our teacher would let us fuck about on Youtube and that is where I was first introduced to our leafy green friend. I won't lie to you, I was disturbed. Watching this...thing on the interactive whiteboard run it's fingers over rusty spoons and kettles made me so uncomfortable. The background music and the soft, high-pitched voice only added to the discomfort. This feeling was definitely not shaken when I watched it again for notes. It was duller than it was before, but it was still there. Overall I thought this short episode was a bit creepy and definitely still uncomfortable.
Episode two: Friends.
I hated this episode. It took the uncomfortable feeling from the first episode and just dialled it up, but I did notice some things about Salad Fingers himself. He has hair on his fingers. I don't know why I thought that was important to note down but it was important. Maybe it's because it just seemed a little strange that a character known as Salad Fingers has hair on them, is the salad mouldy? I don't know like I said, I just thought it was important. Why have I said that this was the one dialled up the discomfort factor? There's a strange tonal shift in this episode. There's a moment in which Salad traps a child in the oven, seemingly innocently as he says that he is cooking a fish but can't reach it. Salad sticks a nail through his finger, tells us how he loves when the "red water" comes out, he then passes out and we see his dream of being in a butcher's refrigerator, with slabs of meat hanging everywhere. He runs into his puppet friend Hubert Cumberdale (remember that name) who proceeds to scream at him. He wakes up and ignores the burning child in the oven. The most uncomfortable thing for me was seeing the nail go through the finger and a ghostly pale Salad passing out. That and the child murder. I definitely thought that so far, this was the most uncomfortable episode.
Episode three: Nettles.
Definitely a very sexually charged episode. Probably a little too sexual for me at least. Don't get me wrong I'm not a prude and I definitely won't say anything against people's sexual tastes and such but I have my limits. And seeing a green mutant...creature? I guess is what he is, I'm not sure. Seeing that talk about
Quote: "Enjoying the pleasures of nettles", rubbing them over his nipples causing him to lactate while an armless zombie watches him. The sexual overtone is really obvious and adds to the already uncomfortable tone that was already established in the first two episodes. That's about it. Weirdly sexual for some reason. Next episode.
Episode four: Cage.
Or as I like to call it, the episode starring my best friend's unborn demon child. God, I'm horrible but I swear that thing's gonna come out evil. This episode honestly seems like more of a reaction to being a parent or being in a lifetime commitment. I'm not sure, it just seems that way to me, probably because of my intense binge watching of Film Theorists and that's a part of it. This was actually the most underwhelming episode with it just being a little odd and not really upping the intensity of the series that, at this point, I was expecting.
Episode five: Picnic.
This was more surreal than anything else. I feel like this was taking less of an uncomfortable, disturbing direction, and takes more of a surreal, disturbing direction. I had no idea what was going on with this, it starts with Salad on the phone of which the cable is cut so he obviously isn't talking to anybody yet he's trying to organise a picnic. We then see him in a wedding dress. Has nothing to do with this episode so I won't dwell on it. Next, we see Salad at the picnic and a little girl approaches him and sits down, joining the picnic. Salad then says Quote: "I shall elect you as my new playmate" which gives off a certain sort of feel. The sort of feel where you see someone strange hanging out outside the primary school gates. You're not entirely too sure about what this person's intent is but you probably wouldn't let your kid be around them unsupervised y'know? Back to the episode, the girl starts to talk with a similar voice to our green protagonist and this, rightfully so, freaks him out and he retreats back to his house and hides in the corner. I'm not sure what angle this episode was going for, in fact, I'm not even sure it was going for an angle at all. It just seemed really surreal. Maybe the girl triggered a traumatic memory in his subconscious? I don't know. I did like this episode, even if it seemed a little lacking in a direction.
Episode six: Present.
This was by far, the most disgusting of the ten episodes of the series. Salad eats one of his friends, comes across the dirtiest toilet I've ever seen and proceeds to stick his hand down it, proclaiming there is enough water in it to wash his petticoat. He gets home and sees himself sat in a chair, staring at him disapprovingly. The version of Salad that is sat down speaks to the version of himself that has just walked in, calling him Jeremy Fisher, the friend previously eaten by Salad himself. We then see him actually speaking to Jeremy Fisher, who is now back as a finger puppet and no longer eaten. Salad then says Quote: "I never did get to sample the delights of your flavour" as he brings his hand up to...I guess re-eat Jeremy, there's a cut and we see Salad eating his own brain. It's fucking disgusting. I didn't like this one. It kept some of the strangeness that seemed to be coming out in the previous episode but went to a gross level with it. Maybe this has something to do with mental health and how your own "bad thoughts" eat at you. Either way, this was gross.
Episode seven: Shore Leave.
This episode is just a bit odd. Salad finds what he thinks to be his brother who is back from the great war on shore leave. The episode follows a fairly straightforward plot. He spends time with his brother, sends him back into the trenches after crying about having to say goodbye to his brother. We then see what I'm assuming is a flashback to Salad being a performer, singing We'll Meet Again, a song from the first world war which was meant to give the wives hope that their husbands would return safely. Salad then has a diva tantrum and glides off the stage. I make note of the gliding as he's also wearing the dress I mentioned from an earlier episode. People tend to say that brides "glide down the aisle" which I think is the point being referenced when Salad glides off the stage rather than walks. Either that or they just couldn't animate him walking. Overall this was a fairly run of the mill episode that was just kind of boring.
Episode eight: Cupboard.
This was a very interesting episode as it's the first episode where I realised that the animation had gotten better, Salad Fingers now has nails and it seems to follow the idea of domestic abuse. Roger (the radio) can get a "little uppity" when he hasn't had his "sustenance" maybe a metaphor for getting violent when he's not wasted? Roger then starts screaming leading to Salad hiding in his safety cupboard. He plays with his hands and is possibly reenacting something from memory, where he is being berated for having skinny long legs and therefore won't be sold something. Maybe this is something that Roger has said to him? The episode takes a gross turn when Salad finds a hair and runs across his eyeball. He adds this to his collection of hairs on the wall. We then see him in bed with Hubert Cumberdale, another of Salad's finger puppet friends and he just flicks the poor thing out of the bed and into the poo bucket, then gets angry at him for being messy. It turns out, however, that Salad is done with Rogers abusive behaviour and threatens to kick him out, only for Roger to demand that Salad cleans the house. Salad refuses. Roger repeatedly says "do it now" leading to Salad eating his hair collection and hiding in the safety cupboard. This has a very strong feel of domestic abuse and ends on a very sad note making it hard to not sympathise with this child murdering creature.
Episode nine: Letter.
The episode where Salad gives birth to...fucking something and names it Yvonne. I don't like this one simply because of that. Salad thinks he's about to die, gives birth Alien chest burst style and gives it the same name as my mother. He then washes a window with the baby after saying he can't take care of it because his health is deteriorating. He also writes a letter with his skinned finger saying he can't go to the war today because he still feels a bit shit. I don't know maybe I'm just bitter about the "baby" having the same name as my mum but I just didn't like it.
Episode ten: Birthday.
Definitely the most graphic and disturbing episode of them all. A horse from an earlier episode is brought back and brutally slaughtered by a weird doctor with claws for hands. That shit's not done off screen either, you seem this doctor hacking away at the horse and it's fucking crying. It's looking into the camera and crying. Salad then heads home to find his now dead zombie friend as a pile of bones, surrounded by other horses. Salad blames the horses for skinning his friend and kicks them out, only to find a table of extremely deformed versions of himself sat at a table and I don't know which of those things is scarier. There are two eating brains, one with a more disconnected mouth than the other, there's one eating, what I'm assuming to be a mushy brain, out of a cup which later smashes its fists on the table and screeches. It's mouth coming way out of its face giving it a very normal yet freakish look. Another one is just smashing its fist on the table, it seems to have been doing this for a while considering its hand is bloody and there are blood stains on the white table cloth. It has no jaw. The final one I won't be able to describe other than faceless. We never see its face throughout its screen time which an argument could be made saying that's why it's the scariest. A person's imagination can run away with possibilities more dramatic than what may actually be. By far this was the scariest of all the episodes.
So that's what I thought of the episodes separately, but how do I feel overall? I thought that this was a very good series. The animation got better over time, it got stranger over time and it definitely got creepier over time. Yes, some episodes didn't even hit the creepy mark but overall it built it up nicely. Another thing I loved about it was it was creative and it's own thing. It didn't go diving into a coherent backstory for the protagonist which fit for this sort of thing. It's pretty damn good. You can watch all the episodes on youtube, separately or all together. In total the run time is about an hour. Maybe if you want a decent theory on the subject then check out The Film Theorists video's on it. I wouldn't recommend showing this to any young children, especially episodes 2, 3, 6, 9 and 10.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how this series made you feel. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you enjoy this series then go and support its creator by checking out his Youtube Channel and other works.
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