The Christmas Cucuy

Better listen to your mother.

Kiki Fonseca finally has a shot at her dream: lead singer for a Latin band at the Hollywood Palladium. It's the day before Christmas Eve, 1949, in the old neighborhoods of Chavez Ravine high in the hills above Los Angeles. The young mother needs to make a dress and tamales too, but her eight-year-old son, Rudy, equal parts angel and hellion, has other ideas.

When Rudy pushes Kiki to the brink, she falls back on an age-old scare tactic: behave, or the Cucuy will get you!

Kiki doesn't really believe in the boogeyman until a gust of wind whips up the dirt roads of La Loma and a hooded nightmare appears.