The Saeki family lived happily in suburban Tokyo, but housewife Kayako Saeki fell in love with her college professor, Peter Kirk, obsessively writing about him in her diary. However, her husband Takeo discovered the diary. Believing Kayako was having an affair, he became mentally disturbed and murdered his wife by snapping her neck to a 90 degree angle, crushing her throat. He then drowned his young son Toshio in the bathtub to cover his tracks, along with the pet cat. Takeo hid the bodies in the attic and closet, before Kayako's ghost murdered him by hanging him with her hair in Toshio's bedroom. Peter came to the Saeki house to speak with Kayako after receiving a letter from her, only to find her corpse. Shocked, he fled the house, killing himself the next day by falling over the balcony of a building in front of his wife. The family rose again as ghosts due to their rage and sorrow, notably Kayako, who appears as an onryō ghost, leaving the curse on the house.