Hurricane Season follows the events that lead to the murder of a transwoman in a small town in Mexico. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
A group of boys come across a corpse floating in a canal. The corpse is that of a transwoman, known as the Witch, who used to throw debauched parties at her house that were attended by young boys.
The film explores the events that led to the murder through the perspective of four different characters. The first one to tell their story is Yesenia, who goes to the police to report her cousin, Luismi.
Yesenia, along with her cousins, lives with her grandmother, who is not very fond of her granddaughters. On the other hand, even though Luismi attends the Witch’s parties, steals things from her house, and uses drugs, their grandmother overlooks all his faults and adores him.
One day, when Yesenia makes a remark about Luismi’s involvement in homosexual acts, he gets angry and goes to live with his mother, Chabela. Yesenia then overhears the town’s gossipers telling her grandmother about Luismi attending the Witch’s infamous parties, but Yesenia’s grandmother refuses to believe them.
Yesenia takes it upon herself to find out the truth and goes to the Witch’s house, where she sees Luismi hooking up with the Witch. When Yesenia tells her grandmother about what she saw, her grandmother does not believe her and cuts her beautiful hair to punish her for lying about Luismi.
A few days later, Yesenia sees Luismi going to the Witch’s house with his friend, Brando, and his mother’s boyfriend, Munra. She sees them carrying the Witch’s body, and as she is angry about losing her hair because of Luismi, she goes to the police to report him for the Witch’s murder.
The story is then told from Munra’s point of view. Luismi is in love with his pregnant girlfriend, Norma. When he finds Norma bleeding in their bed, he asks for Munra’s help to take her to the hospital.
However, Luismi leaves a 14-year-old Norma in the hospital when child services blame him for her condition. Munra and Luismi then find something in a hole in Chabela’s garden.
Munra believes it to be a sign of witchcraft, which makes Luismi think that the Witch is responsible for Norma’s condition. He then pays Munra to take him and Brando to the Witch’s house.
Luismi and Brando go inside the house, while Munra waits in the truck. The two boys come out of the house with the Witch’s body covered in blood. Munra is horrified, but he still takes them to dump the body, and Luismi returns home in tears.
The next story is Norma’s, a 14-year-old girl. She runs away from home when she finds out that she is pregnant with her stepfather’s child. She finds herself in an unfamiliar town with nowhere to go.
There, she meets Luismi, who offers to let her stay with him. Luismi and Norma start dating, and when Norma finally tells Luismi about her pregnancy, he accepts her and her baby. However, Chabela does not think he is going to stick around.
Chabela convinces Norma to abort the baby, as Norma is too young to be a mother. She takes Norma to the Witch’s house, as it is no secret that the Witch helps a lot of people, and asks for her help to abort Norma’s child.
The Witch is reluctant because it is too late to abort the child, and if they try, Norma might end up getting hurt. The Witch gives them a potion when Chabela insists, but she fails to convince Chabela to let Norma stay with her during the process.
As the Witch had warned, Norma is in immense pain after drinking the portion. She digs a hole in the garden and pushes the fetus out of her body into the hole, which is later considered a sign of witchcraft by Luismi and Munra.
Norma does not stop bleeding even after pushing her fetus out. She is found by Luismi and taken to the hospital. Norma’s life is saved, but she mourns the loss of her baby.
The film then explores these events from Brando’s perspective. His story reveals the remaining pieces of the puzzle. Brando’s father abandoned him and his mother a long time ago.
Luismi takes Brando to the Witch’s party on the day Yesenia comes there to find out whether Luismi attends the Witch’s parties. Brando hears Luismi singing and feels attracted to him.
He also sees Luismi with the Witch as well as other men hooking up with each other, and that unsettles him. Later, Brando steals the money that Luismi had gotten as a loan from the Witch.
The next day, when Luismi does not return it and tells the Witch that he did not take the money home, the Witch accuses him of stealing and slaps him. Brando and a few other boys witness this exchange.
Luismi storms out of the Witch’s house, and Brando follows him. Brando tells him that he wants to get out of the town, and he wants Luismi to go with him. The two of them get drunk that night and end up sleeping together, which makes Brando panic the next day.
Despite that, Brando is still adamant about leaving the town with Luismi, but the boys need money for that. Brando has heard that the Witch has gold coins hidden somewhere in her house.
He asks Luismi to apologize to the Witch and get the money from her. If the Witch refuses, he is ready to rob her. However, Luismi does not want to see the Witch because of their argument, and they do not proceed with their plan for the time being.
Hurricane Season ending explained in detail:
Why does Luismi change his mind?
After his conversation with Brando, Luismi goes home and finds Norma covered in blood. He takes her to the hospital and finds out that she has lost the baby. The social services accuse him of getting Norma, who is a minor, pregnant.
Luismi runs away from the hospital and then finds Norma’s fetus in the garden. As he believes that the Witch cast a spell to hurt Norma, he wants to get back at her.
Brando’s plan to rob the Witch suddenly seems like a good idea to Luismi. The two boys pay Munra and are driven to the Witch’s house by him. Yesenia watches them enter and leave the house.
Why is the Witch killed?
At the Witch’s house, Brando and Luismi look for the gold coins that she is said to possess. The Witch tells Luismi that she is poor and that she does not have any money, but the boys do not believe her.
When Brando sees the Witch close to Luismi, he gets furious and hits her. Luismi joins him in beating her up, as he thinks that she hurt Norma. With the Witch bleeding profusely and unable to move, Brando looks for the coins.
However, they do not find anything at her house and take her body to the canal in Munra’s truck. The Witch is still alive when they reach there, and Brando asks Luismi to stab the Witch. Luismi cannot bring himself to kill her, so Brando holds a crying Luismi’s hands and makes him stab her.
Are Brando and Luismi punished for killing the Witch?
After dumping the Witch’s body, Brando tries to run away from home. His father refuses to let him stay with him, and Brando leaves home without having a destination in mind.
During this time, the Witch’s body is found, and Yesenia goes to the police to reveal that she saw Luismi, Brando, and Munra taking the Witch’s body from her house. The police catch Brando, and he is locked up in a cell, where he is bullied by other prisoners.
He does not stay there alone for long. Luismi and Munra are also arrested and brought there. It is evident that they have been beaten up by the police. As soon as Luismi sees Brando there, the two of them embrace each other, and the film ends.
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