The Weeknd—aka Abel Tesfaye—continues his trend of violent music videos with the new one for “False Alarm,” and it might just be his most sinister one yet. The whole video is filmed like a first-person shooter game, with the viewer watching from the point of view of a bank robber who botches the heist. The video begins with a parental advisory warning that cautions “explicit content” and “graphic violence,” so needless to say, it’s NSFW.
Intercut with snippets of dialogue and chock full of guns, drones, and creepy masks, “False Alarm” feels more like an action movie or video game than a music video—and sure enough, it was directed by Ilya Naishuller, whose work includes the first-person shooter film Hardcore Henry. Don’t expect a twist ending, though: “False Alarm” ends with the not-terribly-surprising revelation that we’ve been watching from Tesfaye’s perspective the whole time.
“False Alarm” is the second single off Starboy, out Nov. 25.
