To cure his ailing son, an ill-prepared widower must hunt and kill the source behind a slew of child disappearances - a cihuateteo.
Genre: Adventure • Drama • Family • Horror • Romance
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Screenplay Synopsis:
A mining operation deep in rural Oaxaca uncovers the apparent corpse of an unknown humanoid creature. All who go near it die while experiencing violent seizures, with the exception of Luis Mendez. As he peers into the creature's eye sockets, he feels it somehow combing through his psyche just before the tunnel collapses. Luis is dug out and survives his injuries. The mine is shut down, sealed off, and forgotten.
Eleven years later, Luis' ten-year-old son Eduardo falls ill after a nightmarish encounter with his deceased mother, Enriqueta. Xiadani, the elderly matriarch of a family of knowledge keepers, informs Luis that Enriqueta has been resurrected as a murderous cihuateteo, and must be slain if there is to be any hope of curing Eduardo. After a failed attempt on Enriqueta's life by Xiadani's two grandsons, the grisly task now falls on Luis to carry out.
Luis tracks down and seriously wounds Enriqueta but fails to finish her off when Elias, a well-meaning truck driver, intervenes and saves her. While transporting Enriqueta to a nearby hospital, Elias contracts the same disease as Eduardo.
After receiving a blood transfusion at the hospital, Enriqueta rapidly recovers and takes the form of a monstrous jaguar. Elias escapes in his truck and barrels down the road as Enriqueta brutally kills all in her path as she escapes the hospital on Elias' trail.
Miles down the road, Elias is stopped at a military checkpoint and detained after frantically explaining the massacre he just witnessed. Enriqueta emerges from the darkness, now human in appearance. She kills the armed guards with ease and entrances Elias. The spell is broken by the roar of Luis' truck as he speeds toward them and smashes into Enriqueta. Luis exits his truck and finishes her off in a tearful moment. He realizes that Elias has been infected and is prepared to kill him but decides, against his better judgment, to bring him to Xiadani in hopes of curing him.
On the road to Xiadani's house with Enriqueta's body in the truck bed, Elias becomes violent, driven mad by the disease. Luis is left with no choice but to restrain him in an abandoned, rural house.
Luis arrives at Xiadani's house where he passes out from exhaustion as Enriqueta's heart is charred and mixed with other ingredients to concoct a cure. Eduardo swallows this mixture and his symptoms soon subside, but to Luis' dismay, he learns that there is none left to cure Elias.
Xiadani's grandson Francisco, disgraced by his earlier failure against Enriqueta, accompanies Luis to kill Elias. They arrive at the derelict house to discover Elias has escaped. They track him to the sealed mine from Luis' past. Inside they find Elias' lifeless body. His throat torn open and body drained of blood after freeing the humanoid creature from its tomb. After a harrowing battle, the creature escapes into the wilderness. 2 months later Francisco and Luis drive south following a wave of child disappearances, determined to kill the escaped creature.