Madres (2021)

Diana, heavily pregnant and hoping to write a book while Beto works, dreams of soothing a baby as ominous noises fill a house and a cradle overflows with soil. She wakes in the car as they drive to a remote farming town for his new job. After arriving at their dilapidated home, they visit a local shop where Anita warmly greets them and urges spiritual protection.

After settling uneasily into their new home, Diana grows alarmed by strange noises outside. Beto begins work under Tomas, while Diana confides her frustrations to her sister. Their call is cut short by a loud thud that leads Diana to a shed, where she discovers belongings left by a former tenant—including a music box and clippings about pesticides—before the door suddenly slams shut.

After discovering a severed eye hanging outside their home, Diana attends a neighborhood barbecue where she feels out of place; the women mock her for not speaking Spanish and speak with quiet sadness about their hopes for more children. Enjoying the agua fresca Tomas serves, she accepts a basket to take home. Later, while reviewing Teresa’s notes—including a clipping on Valley Fever—Diana sees a hand appear in the music box’s mirror and falls backward. Shaken, she tells Dr. Bell she’s “seeing things,” and he keeps her overnight, introducing his small clinic staff.

In the clinic, Diana overhears Marisol crying about “la maldición,” but the next morning Marisol remembers nothing. Returning home, Diana finds Beto has cleaned the house, reinforced her chair, and prepared a full nursery. Her mood shifts when he suggests keeping Teresa’s music box. Drawn to Teresa’s research for her writing, Diana studies clippings on sick farmworkers and Valley Fever as new symptoms begin to trouble her.

While researching Teresa’s notes and drinking the agua fresca, Diana develops a rash and experiences a terrifying vision of Teresa appearing before her. Convinced pesticides are harming local women, she asks Anita for help, who insists it is a curse. Diana’s fixation leads to a tense argument with Beto over the risk to his job before they reconcile. After another collapse, she tells Dr. Bell her symptoms may be pesticide‑related, but he attributes them to an unexplained local illness and recommends prayer.

Diana learns from the farmworkers that only women are falling ill, deepening her suspicion that pesticides are responsible. After researching county records, she discovers Hispanic birth rates have collapsed and becomes convinced Teresa died uncovering the truth. Desperate, she and Beto attempt a prayer ritual to test whether a curse is real, but Diana soon suffers another terrifying episode, culminating in a fire and a confrontation with Anita, whom she now believes is endangering her.

During a frantic confrontation with Anita, Diana raises a knife before collapsing, bleeding through her dress and being rushed to the clinic. There she awakens alone, terrified by visions of Teresa and witnesses Marisol forced to sign a form during a medical emergency. Fearing she’ll suffer the same fate, she sends Beto to Arbington, where he learns the town once faced identical pregnancy cases—and that the former doctor responsible was Dr. Bell, deepening their alarm.

Searching Bell’s office, Diana discovers that every woman she met—including Teresa—was coerced into signing sterilization forms, revealing Teresa died during her procedure. She is seized and gassed, awakening strapped to an operating table as Bell admits he has been sterilizing Mexican women. Beto arrives and kills Bell, but Tomas unexpectedly shoots him and reveals the agua fresca was the true poison. As Tomas aims at her, Teresa’s apparition appears, giving Diana the chance to shove him through an interior window, where large glass shards kill him. Diana escapes with her newborn, but Beto dies from his wounds. In the aftermath, Nurse Carol is shown working at a Los Angeles maternity center as archival footage and text detail the real history of forced sterilization in the United States and its persistence into the present day.