प्लॉट

A teacher visits the house of one of his students after the boy goes missing, only to have a horrifying excuse for his absence from school.

Jealous of his wives love for another man, a teacher from her high school, a man brutally kills his wife and young son. Searching for the son who has missed a lot of school, the teacher enters their house, only to find the dead ghost of his mother, and consequently has a heart attack and becomes a ghost himself. The story goes on to tell of the new tenants of the house and what they experience, and an investigation by two police officers into why so many people are disappearing.—kwedgwood@hotmail.com

The plot of the film is unchronological and seems confusing at first. She tells the story from the perspective of six different people, which means that the overall plot only emerges gradually.

Kayako Saeki is unhappily married to her husband Takeo and has a son named Toshio. She secretly falls in love with elementary school teacher Shunsuke Kobayashi and develops an obsession for him, even though he - unlike Kayako - is happily married. But that doesn't seem to bother Kayako; she continues to pursue him and write him anonymous love letters. When her husband discovers his wife's obsession one day, he breaks her neck in front of Toshio. While Kayako is still dying in agony, she puts a curse on the house. Meanwhile, Takeo stabs the family cat and then drowns Toshio in the bathtub. Then he wanders through the streets, observes the house and finally dies in an unspecified manner.

When Shunsuke Kobayashi notices that Toshio hasn't come to school for days, he worriedly drives to the Saeki's house and meets the boy there. He appears strangely apathetic and pale and repeatedly makes meowing noises. The house itself is in complete chaos. Kobayashi asks Toshio questions about his absence from school and his parents, not realizing that he has a ghost in front of him. He looks around the living room and suddenly notices that Toshio has run to his room without announcement and follows him. There he finds Kayako's diary and reads the letters of despair driven by fanatical love. He then discovers Kayako's body in the attic. When Kobayashi wants to leave the house with Toshio, he is first called by Takeo on his cell phone and spoken to in a confused manner, then Kobayashi is surprised and killed by Kayako's ghost.

Some time later, a single mother moved into the house with her children Kanna and Tsuyoshi. The children have an assistant teacher named Yuki who is very afraid of cats. While Tsuyoshi and Kanna work, Yuki hears strange noises that the viewer doesn't hear at first. Kanna leaves the room to feed the school rabbits with her friend Hisayo. Now the sounds can also be heard by the viewer. Yuki's attempt to drown out the noise with music fails when her Walkman malfunctions. When a black cat scares Yuki, she flees into a closet where there is an opening to the attic. Suddenly the noise sounds again. When Yuki looks up, Kayako's spirit pulls her up and kills her.

Meanwhile, student Mizuho has been looking for her friend Tsuyoshi, with whom she has a date, for hours. When she gets to school, she finds his cell phone, which she takes. Neither his teacher nor a loudspeaker call gives Mizuho any clue as to where Tsuyoshi is. While she is searching the teacher's room, the power goes out and the girl crawls under one of the tables to look for the power plug for the table lamps. Suddenly she sees two pale, bare feet walking past on the other side of the table. The cell phone that Mizuho had left on the table rings and the number on the display is 444444. When she answers the call, she smiles at Toshio from below and meows.

In the meantime, Kanna's body is examined in a police autopsy room, which contains rabbit blood and a human lower jaw. However, a corpse without a lower jaw has not yet been discovered. In Kanna and Tsuyoshi's house, the mother has returned home and encounters the jawless ghost of Kanna.

Some time later, a broker takes his sister Kyoko, who has psionic powers, to the Saekis' house because he has to sell it. There she sees Kayako bending over herself. Kyoko drinks sake and immediately spits it out, a sign to her that the house is cursed. She implores her brother to let anyone interested try the sake and to advise against buying it if the sake tastes strange. But the real estate agent ignores Kyoko's warning and sells the house to a family. Hearing this, Kyoko goes to the house and sees that the woman of the family is already possessed by Kayako's spirit.