Reincarnation

In 1970, Professor Norihasa Omori murders eleven hotel guests, employees, and his own children on camera as he seeks to understand reincarnation. He records the killings and then commits suicide, leaving behind a mysterious film. The footage vanishes and becomes a whispered legend that haunts later generations.

Decades pass and the mysterious film remains missing, fueling theories and rumors about its existence and power. Filmmakers and investigators chase the elusive footage, but no copy is ever recovered. The legend begins to blur the line between myth and reality.

Thirty-five years after the killings, horror director Ikuo Matsumura decides to make a film about the massacre. Casting includes Nagisa Sugiura, who will play Omori's daughter Chisato. Production begins as the crew prepares to bring the tragedy to the screen.

As the shoot draws near, Nagisa is haunted by the ghosts of the victims and experiences disturbing nightmares. She feels the past press in on the present and worries about becoming possessed by Omori's story. The sense of dread intensifies even before filming starts.

Nagisa discovers an old film camera similar to the one Omori used, suggesting a direct link between the camera and the hauntings. The find deepens her sense that the equipment carries memories rather than just film. She pockets the instrument as a strange omen.

Yayoi Kinoshita, a college student, meets Yuka Morita, an actress who had auditioned for Matsumura's project. Yuka claims memories from a past life and shows Yayoi a birthmark that resembles evidence of strangulation. Soon after, ghosts drag Yuka away, hinting that the past is far from over.

Yayoi's research leads her to Ayumi, Omori's wife and the massacre's sole survivor. Ayumi explains that Omori had become obsessed with the idea that the body is just a vessel for something greater. Her testimony deepens the sense that the film's ghostly legacy is alive and watching.

During filming, Nagisa's hallucinations sharpen and she reenacts moments from Omori's crime as the camera turns on. The production team reviews the original footage taken by Omori's camera, and the events begin to bleed into reality as Nagisa slips into the killer's perspective. The line between performance and possession becomes dangerously thin.

As the film progresses, the actors start transforming into the characters they portray, and the victims appear to walk toward Nagisa. Terrified, she runs from the studio and into town, chased by a growing sense that the past intends to reclaim them all. The supernatural sequence deepens with each step.

Back on the film's footage, Nagisa's escape unfolds from Omori's point of view, and she is cornered in a store. She grabs a shard of glass to attempt suicide, and during the moment she sees Omori's face reflected in the glass while Omori’s film reveals Nagisa's reflection instead. The moment cements the ghostly film as a living force.

As Nagisa begins to reenact Omori's suicide, a mysterious doll interrupts her and tells her they will be together forever. The doll's interruption fuels a sense that the haunting has acquired a voice of its own. The boundary between the living and the dead grows thinner.

A group of executives watches Nagisa's performance, and Ayumi is among them. Tension rises as the past seems to intrude on the present, and the screening hints that the film's legacy will not stay on the screen. The power of the murder's memory looms over their heads.

Near the end of the shoot, Nagisa collapses and crew members rush to her side. The episode foreshadows a deeper tragedy as the line between performance and haunting remains blurred. The film's completion hangs in the balance as the mystery deepens.

Sometime later, in a mental ward, Nagisa is bound in a full-body wrap and remains haunted by the souls of Omori's children. Ayumi visits through the door window and passes Nagisa her children's red ball and doll, a grim symbol of the past's grip. The haunting intensifies as the toys become focal points of possession.

Nagisa screams but finally smiles with a sinister calm as the ghosts close in. The red ball and doll linger as the spirits surround her, leaving the ending ambiguously haunted rather than resolved. The tale ends with the haunting continuing beyond the screen.