Last week a vampire controversy erupted online—or rather, a vampire movie controversy. Or, to be more specific, a Swedish vampire movie subtitle controversy. See, someone at horror movie Web site Icons of Fright noticed that the subtitles on the new DVD version of Let the Right One In, the Swedish adolescent bloodsucker movie that was one of 2008’s best films, were quite different than the theatrical version—and not in a good way. The new titles seem a bit dumbed-down, if you will— “You can jerk off at home!” becomes “Time to go home!” for example—sparking a lot of justified outrage (you can check out the original comparison at http://tinyurl.com/dd7c3m).

Still, there was speculation that the Canadian version of the DVD used the original, so I did a comparison myself. No such luck; it’s pretty much the exact same as the U.S., down to the also unfortunate fact that it automatically plays the dubbed version when you start the movie. The next day, rumours surfaced that Magnolia, the American distributor of the disc, was going to issue a new, better version, so I contacted Métropole, who are handling the DVD here. More bad news—apparently the “new DVD” rumour was just that, and we’re going to have to live with the inferior version. Still, it’s a fantastic movie, just a real shame that anyone who didn’t see it in the theatres won’t be able to experience its full richness.

Whatever you think of Watchmen, there’s no denying that director Zack Snyder was faithful to the source material. Readers of the original graphic novel will remember Tales of the Black Freighter, a grisly, E.C.-style comic-within-a-comic that indirectly commented on the main story. While it’s not in the movie, Snyder commissioned an animated version, directed by Mike Smith and Daniel DelPurgatorio and voiced by Gerard Butler, available now on DVD and Blu-Ray. It’ll almost certainly end up as a special feature when the actual movie comes out, but if you can’t wait, go nuts.