Now that I've shared just about everything I have that refers to
Curse of Dark Shadows, I have to confess that I'm nowhere near certain just when the decision was made to rename the film
Night of Dark Shadows. And that's mostly because, even though the film would open in New England as NoDS in August and it was being promoted in newspapers as such right from August 1st, right through July it was still being talked about in national magazines as CoDS. Though, of course, most of those magazines were at least a month behind the time they came out, if not more than a month. For example, the article I just shared from 16 came out in April (as the June issue of 16) but it certainly appears as if the article itself was written in March or maybe even a bit earlier.
All I do know for certain is how I found out about the title change. And that was thanks to a friend's sister who in the second half of July had gone with her friends to see a film at the same indoor theater in my city where NoDS would open on August 25th. While there the theater showed a trailer for NoDS and indicated it was "coming soon." As soon as she got home, knowing what a huge DS fan her brother was, she told him about seeing the trailer for NoDS. Of course his reaction was, "What do you mean
Night of Dark Shadows, the film is titled
Curse of Dark Shadows. And her natural reaction was she knew what she had seen and the film was definitely called
Night of Dark Shadows. Though even in the face of such direct evidence, he was still a bit dubious about her info, as only a brother can be. But he had to admit the truth once we started to see TV spots promoting the opening of
Night of Dark Shadows in the area on August 4th.
And speaking of those TV spots, my favorite of the two I saw is definitely the one that appears on MPI's
DS Behind The Scenes VHS/DVD:
I was thrilled to death to see it again in '91 when that VHS came out. And one of the reasons I like it even more now than I did originally is because it jams in so much deleted stuff into only 30 seconds.
Carlotta during the seance
Quentin during the seance
Strack being graphically trampled (though this was in the R-rated version)
A light moving in the tower
And when this spot played leading up to the opening, a local announcer added at the end, "Night of Dark Shadows starts Wednesday at a theater near you. Check your local paper. Rated GP."
Nowadays no one could check their local paper because most newspapers don't even have amusements sections, much less a section that advertises/lists current films and times!
And the other TV spot that played in this area was the 10 second version. It simply consisted of the footage of Angelique moving in to attack Tracy and its voiceover simply said, "From the makers of house of Dark Shadows, Night of Dark Shadows. Ho, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! A night of...terror!"
And when that one played while NoDS was already open, a local announcer added, "See Night of Dark Shadows in a theater or drive-in near your home."
I understand that there's also a 20 second TV spot, but I've never seen it...