[Film]

Creative Differences Among Karaoke Vampyres

Why this is no longer billed as “A film by Malifick Stayrino”

From the facebook page for KARAOKE VAMPIRES

[Until recently Cos was working on a film project, now completed, called KARAOKE VAMPyRES with a co-producer he identified as “Malifick Stayrino.” There appears to have been a falling out and now the plot thickens as Stayrino’s name is taken off the title of the film… ~Editor]

by Cos The Shroom

I had gone into the project fully expecting Malifick to do most of the work on this project. because it was his idea to make a vampire movie based on karaoke I truly thought he would forge this film.

As the film progressed I ended up doing all the directing, create a workable storyline, and took over the project, No one who was in the film will dispute that this became my baby.

Still in my own mind I exaggerated the importance of his contributions. Firstly because he was my friend and played a great Renfield-type character, and then because I wanted to keep him motivated and hoped he could contribute more in the future.

I also considered his ideas a major part of the cosmology presented in this film, even though I developed it all myself. Why? Well Malifick created an atmosphere of pseudoscience by his presence in my home. Malifick believes in Niburu, 9-11 conspiracies and practically every insane paranoid pop culture idea that is rampant among isolated misfits who spend their lives wired to the internet.

I had often read that people could mistake planets for UFOs but I never actually believed that this was possible until the night Mal called me outdoors to point out the incredible UFO that was “moving around in the sky.”

He pointed strait to Jupiter.

I don’t want to run him down or suggest he is somehow a bad person for all of this – he suffered catastrophic brain injuries, lost stereoscopic vision, and has regrettably poor judgement as a result. He was a wonderful friend in spite of my difficulty putting up with his crazy ideas. I just looked on him as a child and in a sense our difficulties probably arose from me having to look after him like a parent.

Mal somehow got it in his head that I would be OK with him bailing out on his financial obligations to me– which were so minimal that even the most amoral freeloader would have gladly lived up to out of sheer envy.

This seemed to me like a devastating betrayal because it came at the worst possible time and jeopardized everything I had been working for.

But now I have said my last cruel thing to him. It is pointless to try to make someone feel like shit for something they have no concept of– the value of money, how badly you can harm someone by betraying their trust, etc.

He is like a child and I would be as mean and foolish as Captain Ahab in “Moby Dick” to hate a child.

But this does not mean I have to continue working with him as an artist or putting any effort investing in an artist who can’t even invest in himself.

I have reclaimed all the credit that I am due for the making of this film. At first I did so out of malice, but now I do so simply because I am no longer willing to debase my own creativity to put an undeserving person on a pedestal for my personal feelings.

It was hurtful for me to lash out at him like that, and ultimately that is why I never should have treated him like I was some kind of father figure who would share everything with him and make him my protege.

It was wrong of me to coddle him, because it enabled his irresponsible and childish lifestyle.

But that is why I have to forgive him and no longer hate him, because I can be irresponsible and childlike too. Indeed it was this common ground for which I loved and continue to love him.

I may be able to forgive him one day for all of this hardship his dereliction created.
I may never be able to forgive myself for being so hateful and cruel to him.

His portrayal of Sarco was brilliant, but in the future I will be using a stand in for Sarco like Ed Wood used for Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 from outer space.

Again, not because of any malice I had to him, but because my work will never have any lasting value if I debase it by investing so much in an artist who is simply incapable of making my efforts worth it.

I sent him an email that pointed out that at least one of his screwy ideas had proven wrong, and that is the last hateful thing I will say to him.

I have love in my heart for Malifick, but to treat him like he was a friend would simply enable him and ultimately harm him by allowing him to get away with making so many poor decisions.

I have no wish to harm him any more than I already have.

I hope he will forgive me for all of this, although I do not expect him to ever understand why I can’t treat him like the friend my heart knows him to be.

The most I will ever give him credit for beyond his acting is to publicly acknowledge that it was his incredibly strange mind that inspired this film.

Since it is creative commons he is free to do anything he wants to make this his film.

He could re-edit it, drop in his own footage, drop in 3-d cgi animation or whatever. Hell he could re-shoot the fucking thing. So could you or anyone else, yes, even the big studios, as long as they give me credit for writing the thing.

I’m letting go of the hate. I know it was ugly and hurtful to show it to so many people. My apologies to everyone for making them see that kind of hate.

[Cos T. Shroom is an independent fim maker (very independent) in Ruidoso, New Mexico. You can read more about KARAOKE VAMPYRES on its Facebook page HERE.]

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