Samara is adopted by Anna and Richard Morgan (Shannon Cochran and Brian Cox), who own a horse ranch on Moesko Island, Washington. As Samara grows up, her powers burn horrific images in her adoptive mother's mind, almost driving her insane. Richard banishes Samara to live in the ranch stable, but she uses her powers to push Anna's beloved horses to suicide. At one point, Samara is taken to a psychiatric hospital but the doctors are unable to explain how she created the images. During a family vacation to Shelter Mountain, Anna attacks Samara while standing in front of an old well, choking her with a garbage bag and then knocking her into the well. Anna then commits suicide by jumping off a cliff. However, Samara clings to life for seven days alone in the well before dying from a combination of starvation and hypothermia. Eventually, a series of rental cabins are built near the well, one above it. This allows Samara to project her visions onto a VCR tape, creating the seven day curse. The Samara curse kills Katie (Amber Tamblyn), the granddaughter of journalist Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), who investigates the origins of the tape. Rachel, her ex-boyfriend Noah Clay (Martin Henderson) and son Aidan (David Dorfman) all watch the video. Rachel meets Richard, who warns her to stay away and then kills herself via electrocution. Rachel and Noah eventually find Samara's corpse in the well and bury it. Unfortunately, this releases a bodily, grotesque form of Samara's spirit and she kills Noah according to the rules of the curse. Rachel destroys the original videotape in a fit of rage, but uses a copied version of the video to continue the curse in order to save Aidan.
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