Fatal Frame III: The Tormented

Synopsis

Based on the Tecmo video game of the same name. While on a freelance assignment taking pictures of a supposedly haunted mansion with her assistant Miku Hinasaki, she sees her deceased fiancé Yuu in a hallway after taking a picture of him, after which she has a daydream of a snowy manor. After she returns home and develops the photo she took, an image of Yuu appears in the photograph. After this, Rei begins having strange recurring dreams. In these dreams, she finds herself at an old Japanese manor house during a heavy snowfall and observes her fiancé entering the house. Seeking him, she follows his figure inside, where the dream becomes a nightmare. Waking up gasping from a frightening encounter, in which she was touched by a female ghost covered in tattoos, Rei notices a mysterious bruise appear on her body, which begins to spread the more she dreams to form a snake and holly tattoo, just like the one on the woman and some of the other ghosts. As the plot progresses, Rei explores more and more of the manor, encountering greater resistance from the ghosts holding it and discovering the many gruesome rituals practised at the old mansion from decades before. She begins to receive letters from Kei Amakura, a non-fiction writer and uncle of Mio and Mayu from Fatal Frame II, who was Yuu's friend and has not been informed of his death. Kei writes in his letters that he and Mio both have the curse, and continues to send on his research and call Rei, before finally visiting Rei's house in person. During this time, Rei discovers that Miku is also having the same dreams as she is and is being consumed by the same curse. Rei eventually finds out about Reika Kuze, the Tattooed Priestess- a woman destined to be sacrificed after her body becomes fully covered with the tattoos, applied to diminish the pain of the mourners who come to see her at the shrine. After her body was entirely covered, she was taken to a large stone chamber on the far side of the manor and impaled by the four tattooed stakes, which were meant to bind her in a dream-like state for eternity. However, Kaname, a man whom she grew up with and had fallen in love with, discovered that Reika had been taken to the shrine as a priestess. With the help of Amane Kuze, Kaname's half sister, he sneaked into the shrine see Reika one last time. Yashu Kuze, the family mistress, found Kaname and struck him in the back of the head, killing him instantly in front of Reika. Heartbroken, Reika allowed her tattoos to enter her eyes, releasing the pain pent up inside her body. The resulting disaster unleashed "The Rift", a dark force that wiped out everyone in the manor. Reika's now-evil spirit began appearing in the dreams of those who had lost loved ones, or had been dreamt of by someone with the curse, touching them and "cursing" them with her own tattoos. After the tattoo covered their whole body they would disappear, leaving behind only black soot. As Rei blames herself for Yuu's death, Miku blames herself for her brother Mafuyu's death at Himuro Mansion, and Kei is dreamt about by his niece Mio, they all become trapped in the manor and must find a way to end the curse.