40 Baffling, Outrageous Mexican Movie Title Translations! (Part 1)
Mexico, like many Latin American countries, has a long tradition of giving Spanish titles that make no sense to foreign films. Honestly, each week there's a new title translation to laugh at. For example, Michael Bay's Pain & Gain was released just last Friday under the title of Sangre, Sudor y Gloria (Blood, Sweat and Glory). And Terrence Malick's To the Wonder opens this week as Deberás Amar (You Shall Love).
Sometimes the weird and independent movies that aren't released theatrically in Mexico are hard to find, simply because they're available on DVD with a completely different title. You have to look carefully at the local store, or else you won't realize that the cheap DVD called Asesino por Encargo (Killer by Request) is actually William Friedkin's Killer Joe.
And so, I'd like to share some of the highlights of the last several decades with you. Because there are so many funny, ridiculous and inexplicable Mexican title translations, I'm making this a two-part article (with 40 titles each), featuring films both new and old. Part one offers such classics as Yojimbo, Jaws and Poltergeist, as well as recent titles like Life of Pi, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Stoker.
Note: Some slides in the gallery contain more than one movie title translation, hence, while I cover 40 movies here, there are only 32 slides.
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