Earlier this year US Distribution company Magnolia Pictures dropped the ball and gave us a crappy release of a brilliant Swedish Horror flick called Let the Right One In.  Long story short, they put a dumbed down Subtitle track in place of the nuanced Subtitles that people saw in theaters.

Deciding to wait until their current inventories ran out before fixing the issue and refusing any sort of trade-in program, Magnolia has failed to show any sort of concern for their customer.  (Let it be noted that “fixed” DVD copies are slowly making their ways into stores, but not Blu Ray copies).

Enter UK’s Momentum Pictures.  On August 3rd they released the finest Blu Ray you can purchase.  Plus, it’s REGION FREE, DTS-HD Master Audio, and has a DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY with novelist and screenplay writer John Ajvide Lindqvist and director Tomas Alfredson.  Combine that with fairly cheap import costs via Amazon.uk and we all can give Magnolia Pictures the collective finger and send our U. S. Dollars overseas.

Here’s the specs:

Video

Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio

Subtitles

Disc

25GB Blu-ray Disc

Buy this sucker now if you’ve been waiting 6 months for Magnolia to throw us a bone.  It’s a total of about $30 (US) via Amazon.uk (this includes shipping).  A movie that deserves every penny.

[Source: Evil on Two Legs]

Even though we can’t OWN Let the Right One In with the correct Theatrical subtitles, at least we can view it on Netflix Watch Instantly in HD.  Thanks to Russ Fischner over at Chud for bringing this to light!

This is one of the best vampire movies I have ever seen.  Too bad we can’t own a good copy of this yet.  Until I can actually purchase a Blu-Ray worth having, this will tide me over, for sure.

[Source: Chud]

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]

Update:

According to people who have done so, Amazon will let you return this DVD/Blu-ray as defective, even if it’s been opened, for a full refund.  Do that and wait until the corrected version comes out and buy it.

IconsOfFright broke the story over the weekend that Magnet had encoded inferior subtitles on the DVD/Blu-Ray release of Let the Right One In.  This subtitle change “dumbed down” the subtleties and richness of the characters and story.  Head over to IconsOfFright to view the full comparisons.

Yesterday, Magnet released a statement on the DVD website Digital Bits:

“We’ve been made aware that there are several fans that don’t like the version of the subtitles on the DVD/BR. We had an alternate translation that we went with. Obviously a lot of fans thought we should have stuck with the original theatrical version. We are listening to the fans feedback, and going forward we will be manufacturing the discs with the subtitles from the theatrical version.”

However:

“There are no exchanges. We are going to make an alternate version available however. For those that wish to purchase a version with the theatrical subtitles, it will be called out in the tech specs box at the back/bottom of the package where it will list SUBTITLES: ENGLISH (Theatrical), SPANISH.”

So, all of us that bought the DVD/Blu-Ray already are basically stuck with the inferior subtitles. This is a classic example on how to ruin all credibility of your company.  Hopefully Magnet wises up and offers a disc exchange program. You can email Magnet at: dvd@magpictures.com. I have numerous times already.

UPDATE:

From an Anonymous comment on /Film:

If you are still frustrated about Magnet not offering an exchange program I would recommend emailing Mark Cuban who owns Magnet/Magnolia/2929/Landmark and let him know your frustrations.

He’s the one guy who actually has the authority to make the exchange program happen. Explain to him how you think it is unreasonable to purchase two copies of a movie just so you can get the correct one, and that because of it it is going to adversely effect your opinion and your willingness to purchase products from his other media brands that distribute his films

mark.cuban@dallasmavs.com