Language solutions play a vital role in helping businesses enter and grow in international markets. However, localisation and translation mistakes can often lead to marketing nightmares.  

In this blog, we are going to investigate 3 examples of horror films impacted by translation fails.  

Beware Spoilers ahead!

 

1. Jaws – The Teeth of The Sea (France) 

Jaws was an academy award-winning film, that made $476.5 million at the Box Office. When Jaws entered France, it had a very different title, The Teeth of the Sea. 

Overall, this wasn’t too bad. However, complications arose when they had to name the sequels. Les Dents de la Mer 2 (Teeth of the Sea 2), sounds a bit like “teeth of sh**.  

I think it’s safe to say the naming of the other films was translated a little more carefully.  

 

2. Ghostbusters – Superpower Dare Die Team (China) 

Ghostbusters was one of the most successful comedy films of the 1980s. But, when this classic entered China, it was unrecognisably titled, uperpower Dare Die Team.”  

From that title, would you know what this film was about? Well, neither did the Chinese audience. This confusing title left people with the fun task of decrypting what the movies content was going to be.  

Luckily, the film was a global success and went on to create a trilogy.  

 

3. The Sixth Sense - He’s a Ghost (China) 

The Sixth Sense was a phycological horror released in 1999. This film was a great success across the globe. However, when it entered China, the translation didn’t quite hit the mark. 

The Chinese translation was “He’s a Ghost”, which as many people know is a massive spoiler! The people of China weren’t too impressed when the movie was ruined in 3 words. 

What was one of the highest-grossing films in the US, just didn’t have the same impact due to the bad translation.   

Fortunately, this industry learnt from these mistakes and has begun introducing other techniques like transcreation and localisation to prevent this from happening in the future.  

 

Are you looking to expand your businesses into international markets? Maybe you have a marketing campaign to help you achieve this. Well, why not use a trusted translation agency like Wolfestone 

Wolfestone is a translation agency that works with experts to create the perfect campaign for you in over 220 language combinations.   

Are in interested in finding language solutions that will accelerate your business on an international level? Contact us today to find out more.