As reported earlier, there is much outrage to Magnolia Pictures genre label Magnet’s DVD/Blu-Ray release of the much loved Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In. The subtitles were dumbed down and were significantly different than what appeared in the Theatrical Release.
Today I got wind of an internal email sent from a Magnolia rep to the Canadian distributor Mongrel, who used the same source material as Magnolia for their release.
Yes the bloggers are having a field day on this one. Normally they like to pick on the English Dub tracks, but in this case it’s the subtitles. Obviously online tend to get rowdy and bandwagon mentality without knowing all the details. The current subtitle track is not altering the context of the film at all, in fact it’s a more literal translation than any prior version of subtitles. It’s not a defective or faulty subtitle file. Just more literal and larger in size for the small screen. Both English and Spanish subtitle files were produced for this dvd release. Frankly it’s not all that uncommon to have the subs vary from prior releases, typically go unnoticed as subs are purely a translation of film dialogue. This wouldn’t have been a blip had it not been for one particular horror blog doing a side by side and claiming that they are wrong. They are not. We are not doing a recall or anything of that nature, again, these are not defective. Title came out two weeks ago and general public don’t notice and don’t care – bloggers are well known for jumping on something, making an issue of it and moving on. We have decided that based on the feedback that we will be making a running change, so that going forward (once inventories deplete), we will be making that subtitle version available. Options in set up will be; English Subtitles / English (theatrical) Subtitles / Spanish Subtitles”
So, they’re not handling this matter in a customer service related matter. Basically, the error will eventually be fixed, but not soon. I’d encourage all of you to keep emailing and calling. See below for all of Magnolia’s contacts:
NEW YORK
Magnolia Pictures
49 West 27th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10001
(212) 924-6701
(212) 924-6742 fax
TEXAS
Magnolia Pictures
1614 W. 5th Street, Austin, Texas 78703
(512) 474-0303
(512) 474 0305 fax
For publicity, please e-mail publicity@magpictures.com
For DVD/Home Video, please e-mail dvd@magpictures.com
For International Sales, please e-mail international@magpictures.com
[Source: Icons of Fright, The Consumerist]
