The Last of Us’ Big Fungus... why won’t you let me love you

polygon.com:

If there’s one thing I’m known for here at Polygon, it’s that I’m a fan of big guys fighting on screen. One of the first things I wrote here was a review of the “Sherlock Holmes, but the Hulk” procedural Reacher(it’s fun!). And while I did not like The Rings of Power, I loved the big orc that showed up in one episode so much I wrote an ode to him and gave him a name.

So when I heard there was going to be a gigantic infected in episode 5 of The Last of Us, I was excited. The show had surpassed my expectations so far in its ability to re-create some of the fungal horror from the video game, especially the clickers, with stunning use of practical effects and prosthetics augmented by CG to create monsters that are scary precisely because they are so tangible.

Unfortunately, I was set up for disappointment. The big infected — let’s call it Big Fungus, but it looks like a version of the Bloater from the games — shows up in a pitch-black, frenzied battle scene, as hordes of infected pour out of the ground to attack the Kansas City resistance and our terrified heroes. The action scene is disappointing on its own and can’t even match the fourth episode’s gas station shootout. While that one was crisp in its chaos, cleanly and clearly showing the audience the action and where the relevant parties are, this one suffered from a poorly lit night setting where it was hard to see anything, and also from the camera mostly focusing on the people hiding or running away, rather than one of the few humans-versus-infected fights in the show. But as a scholar of Big Fighters On Screen, I was most disappointed at how they massacred my bloated boy.

When Big Fungus rises out of the ground, it’s supposed to be a moment that inspires awe and