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Dr Stinson wrote:

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After much head banging I've come to the conclusion that the bigfoot NIGHT OF THE DEMON probably bypassed theatrical release entirely and instead was immediately whisked away to home video. I'm even begining to wonder if the 1980 production/release date commonly attached to it is incorrect due to more confusion regarding it and the re-titled reissue of THE TOUCH OF SATAN.

I'm likewise very skeptical about the 1980 date... although not to the point of ruling it out entirely as a possible production date. From looking at the movie itself, one can conclude that it was produced no earlier than 1978, when the new Girl Scouts logo was introduced that appears prominently on sweaters worn in the film. At one point, a front cover of M Magazine is seen [link], which might possibly help with dating. Beyond that, there's actually a calendar on the wall in one of the cabins, but it's impossible to read.

The earliest verifiable release of this film in any form was on vhs in the United Kingdom; it appears in the Iver Film Services catalogue of releases for June 1982, and adverts for it first appear in the British video trade press from that month also.

In the U.S., its initial vhs release was as a 'rental only' tape from VCII in 1984; there was also a 'sell thru' release from VCII in 1986. By way of confirming these dates, the front-cover artwork for both VCII releases actually bears a copyright date at the bottom of it, for 1984 and 1986 respectively [both covers can be seen at this link]. The movie itself was copyrighted in the U.S. on October 10th, 1983, jointly by production company Aldan Company Inc. and video distribtor VCII (copyright V2028P738). Further copyright records exist for the VCII video packaging, from January 10th, 1984 (copyright VA0000155303), and for the home video transfer of the film, on March 15th, 1984 (copyright PA0000416821).

Writing at CinemaKnifeFight.com [link], Nick Cato asserts that he saw NIGHT OF THE DEMON on a double-bill with OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN at the Amboy Twin Theatre in Staten Island in 1983. I checked the cinema listings for the Amboy Twin, and OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN indeed played there from November 25th through December 8th, 1983. However, no mention is made of any second feature (and neither does NIGHT OF THE DEMON show up in any listings for many tens of movie theatres in New York and New Jersey that I could locate). This either means that we're dealing with a case of faulty memory, or else that NIGHT OF THE DEMON literally 'snuck out', without press announcements or movie paper. The fact that Nick Cato reproduces the wrong artwork, for the reissue of THE TOUCH OF SATAN, is indeed indicative of the fact that, prior to the 1982 UK and 1984 US video covers, there simply is NO artwork for this movie.

One further tidbit: the movie commences with the credit "Jim L. Ball presents an ALDAN COMPANY production" (with Jim L. Ball also having come up with the story). Trade publication Boxoffice first lists Aldan in its annual buyers' directory in (August) 1982, as "Aldan Producers & Distributors of Motion Pictures, 355 S. Mansfield, Los Angeles, CA 90036, president Dr. Jim Ball." In the (September) 1983 buyers' directory, the company name has changed to "The Aldan Company", which is how the company continues to be referred to until its last buyers' directory entry, in (August) 1991. This again points to 1980 being simply too early, if Aldan only started trading and referring to itself as 'The Aldan Company' in 1982/83.

Google News is no longer as user-friendly as it used to be.

If you go to the general news page search...
http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=nn
...then you can only specify the time period properly as a refinement to a search already conducted, with new options (including 'archive' for pre-1991 results) appearing in the left-hand column (as in this example of a search for 'mango'):
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=mango

Personally, I now always just use a bookmark to go straight to the 'advanced archive search', for which there's no direct link anywhere on the Google News page (where only the less useful 'advanced news search' option is offered):
http://news.google.com/archivesearch/advanced_search

Dr Stinson wrote:

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Oh yes and does anyone know the theatrical history of these two titles?

DEVIL FISH (aka MONSTER SHARK) (1984)

CONTAMINATION.7 (aka CREEPERS and THE CRAWLERS) (1990)

In the case of CONTAMINATION.7 the common wisdom has often been that it and other similar productions from Joe D'Amato's Filmirage company were released straight to video in the U.S.. However I recently found an advert in an old film catalogue from the early 90's which announces CONTAMINATION.7 as an upcoming theatrical release from Epic Pictures (under the the title THE CRAWLERS if I recall ). I can't quite recall the date of the advert (the catalogue in question is currently in storage due to our last move) but I think it was from 1991.

The U.S. theatrical release of DEVIL FISH, such as it was, constituted a typical mid-1980s Cinema Shares Int'l commercial tactic: the film was dumped into one low-rent 42nd St. theater for a handful of days, in order that it could subsequently be released with a higher price-tag to home video and cable television as being 'direct from theatrical release.' Specifically, the movie played under the title MONSTER SHARK for five or six days in November 1986, and was reviewed in Variety on November 10th, 1986.

It wouldn't surprise me if CONTAMINATION 7's release as THE CRAWLERS was a similar set-up, and indeed, it's largely due to the proliferation of such purposeful, minimally-advertised, ultra-limited releases during the golden years of vhs and cable that I don't discount Nick Cato's claim to have seen NIGHT OF THE DEMON on Staten Island out-of-hand, especially as this fell during the short period of time between the movie's acquisition and video release by VCII.

Dr Stinson wrote:

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doctor kiss wrote:

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ARENA (1989) --- I likewise find no mention of this one other than its U.S. home video release in 1991 and its release to television in 1992.

Getting back to this quickly. I had always assumed that this had gone straight to video, that is until I found what appears to be a theatrical one sheet for it at the "Wrong Side of Art" site HERE.  

I wonder whether the financial meltdown of Empire International Pictures prevented this one from reaching cinemas, even though a U.S. theatrical release had been prepared. The movie was mentioned in Variety on multiple occasions from January 1988 onwards, but the final reference to it comes at the end of July 1988, in the context of 'other unreleased Empire titles' that had recently failed to reach 'theatrical markets,' as originally intended. The film was certainly submitted to the MPAA  by Trans World Entertainment/Epic Productions (both Diamant-Sarlui companies), and subsequent trade ads for the rental video release from September and October 1991 bear both the MPAA rating and Epic logo, but with the TWE logo blacked out. There seem to be a lot of mint-condition, machine-folded U.S. one-sheets for ARENA on the market, with their very mintness and quantity suggesting to me that they might stem from an aborted release --- but this is still supposition on my part, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if evidence of an ultra-limited/single-screen 'purposeful' theatrical release yet turned up.