To kick off its "#StellaBy" series, Stella McCartney put out a short film on Thursday, Harper's Bazaar reports. It's called The Uncanny Valley — a concept that describes the unsettling nature of something almost but not entirely human — so you know it's going to be creepy. And it doesn't disappoint.
It starts off with cuts from old movies, and then people wearing clothes from Stella McCartney's SS17 collection sit in a house listening to a broadcast about atomic bombs. Their makeup makes them look like clowns — which makes sense when you see that the building they're in is called Clown Motel.
Turns out this is an actual attraction in Tonopah, Nevada. Pictures of clowns adorn the lobby and room, according to Roadtrippers.
The characters also visit a graveyard and a field with cars stuck vertically into the ground, in case it wasn't spooky enough already.
Philippa Price, who directed it in the Nevada desert, said in a Q&A on Stella McCartney's website that the location inspired her work. Tanopah was originally a mining town but became a site to test atomic bombs in the '40s.
"I did already have an idea of the makeup and hair looks I wanted beforehand," she said. "That was mostly based off of looking online at photos of the Clown Motel. However, once I got there the whole story totally came together. The Clown Motel itself is incredibly weird and wonderful, however I didn’t know how inspiring the whole area around it would become."
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