The Video Diary of Ricardo Lopez (2000, Sami Saif)

This is some pretty fascinating shit. Like most people who often seek out flagrant forms of 'shock material' on the internet, I had come across "The Björk Stalker Suicide Video" online a while back. Knowing nothing about it at the time, the video depicts a fat bag of shit, naked, with his face painted up, rambling on about Björk angrily before shooting himself in the mouth to one of her songs. The video is very non-graphic - containing no blood or brain matter until after homeboy has collapsed out of frame, which is when you can hear his skull emptying out onto the floor. It wasn't until I saw "The Video Diary of Ricardo Lopez" recently that it was all put into some kind of perspective.

Ricardo Lopez was a 21-year old exterminator from Florida who started video recording himself in his shithole apartment as he spouted off about his obsession with the singer, Björk. Apparently, R-Lo was none-to-happy with his beloved Björk marrying a negro so, like an evil mastermind (or full-blown retard), he began constructing an acid bomb hidden in a book that he intended on mailing to her.

As the videos continue - taken from about 20 hours of footage that the detached lardass had shot explaining his life and hatred, yet LOVE, for Björk - we see as he gradually becomes more and more mentally unhinged as his sulfuric acid package nears completion. He explains his intentions of suicide immediately following the shipping of the package, how he quit his job and stopped paying his bills, how his family became increasingly more worried about him and actually made him see a shrink on a few occasions. Finally, he gets his idiotic parcel done, loads his gun and heads to the post office and the whole thing apparently goes off without a hitch. The film ends just shy of his suicide...

This is definitely a candid and 100% authentic look into a deteriorating psyche, buckling from insurmountable depression, paranoia, sexual frustration and delusions. Ricardo Lopez was an extremely pathetic and isolated individual who succumbed to his feelings of utter hopelessness and self-loathing and, like quite a few of these guys, wanted to take someone with him and 'make his mark'. It didn't pan out all that well for him, seeing as how his months of handy work was intercepted in London and never got to Björk. Tough luck there, Ricky.