Two high school students, Katie Embry and Becca Kotler, have a sleepover and discuss the urban legend of a cursed videotape that will kill anyone seven days after watching it. Katie claims she and three friends watched said videotape, but Becca does not believe her. Shortly after, supernatural phenomena occurs around Katieâs house and she is killed by an unseen force. Becca, witnessing Katieâs death, is institutionalised.
At Katieâs funeral, her aunt Rachel Keller, a journalist from Seattle, is asked by her sister Ruth to investigate Katieâs bizarre death and deformed corpse. Rachelâs son Aidan possesses an extrasensory ability, claiming Katie told him she would die a week ago. Rachel discovers Katieâs three friends all died at the same time. Printing a photo reel from Katieâs bedroom leads Rachel to the holiday resort Shelter Mountain Inn, where the four students stayed. Rachel discovers the famed videotape and watches it in a rental cabin, discovering it has surreal, gruesome imagery. As soon as the tape ends, the cabinâs telephone rings and a girlâs voice utters âSeven daysâ.
Rachel enlists help from Noah Clay, her ex-boyfriend and Aidanâs father. A video analyst, Noah is sceptical of the tapeâs curse but watches it, asking Rachel to copy it for examination. Rachel studies the video, discovering hidden imagery of a lighthouse. She identifies it as the lighthouse of Moesko Island, connecting it to a woman on the video, a horse breeder named Anna Morgan. Annaâs ranch was caught in controversy when her prize-winning horses committed mass suicide by leaping into the sea, and only ended after she too took her own life. Rachel and Noah both experience supernatural symptoms. Rachel is haunted by the ghost of a little girl, and catches Aidan watching the tape. She leaves Aidan in Ruthâs care, while she goes to Moesko Island, and Noah travels to Eola Psychiatric Hospital to gain information on Annaâs medical files.
Rachel discovers Anna had an adopted daughter, Samara Morgan, the girl who is haunting her. On the ferry to the island, a horse is spooked by Rachelâs presence, escapes its pen and falls under the ship to a bloody death. Rachel meets Annaâs widow Richard, but he dismisses her when she starts asking about Samara. She then speaks to the islandâs GP, Dr. Grasnik, who explains Samara possessed uncontrolled thoughtography, burning nightmarish images into her parentsâ minds, and was sent to the hospital. Rachel confronts Richard over Samaraâs apparent abuse, but he commits suicide via electrocution. Noah arrives, and the two search the ranchâs barn where Samara was kept, secluded from her mother. It is also implied she caused the horses to go mad. They find a burnt drawing of a tree on the wall, the same tree seen in the videotape, and on Shelter Mountain.
Travelling to Shelter Mountain, Rachel and Noah discover a water well hidden beneath the rental cabin where they suspect Samaraâs body is, assuming Richard murdered her. Rachel falls down the well, experiencing a flashback that reveals it was Anna that threw Samara down the well. Rachel then recovers Samara's corpse. Rachel does not die, the curse seemingly over. The next day, Aidan informs Rachel she shouldnât have helped Samara, revealing he is still cursed as is Noah. Noah witnesses Samaraâs ghost climb out of his television, and she (or, more precisely, her appearance) kills him.
The enraged Rachel destroys the original tape, realising she was spared because she copied it and showed it to Noah, replicating the curse. In the closing scene, Rachel helps Aidan make his own copy of the tape, and he asks what happens next, to which Rachel does not answer.
What does the voice on the telephone say when Rachel picks up?
Seven days