But as another storyline began, Corey's heart was once again on edge.
He watched a man riding his bicycle, then answering a phone call. Suddenly, a string of "4"s appeared on the screen. Finally, when the guy turned his head and noticed a small boy sitting right beside him, opening his mouth and letting out a cry, Corey still shuddered from head to toe in fright.
However, that particular sequence ended there. Corey clutched at his chest, adjusting his breathing for a while. Although the ringtone was somewhat eerie, having already survived the baptism of One Missed Call, Corey felt that this wasn't too unbearable in comparison.
That segment, in fact, was one of the deleted scenes from the VHS version of Ju-On. In that tape version, the guy's death was never shown or explained, though it could still be found on the internet. Edward had simply modified it slightly, adding back the original deleted scenes, thereby completing the shooting of Ju-On 1.
Yet while filming, Edward also realized a problem. Those two deleted sequences did indeed affect the level of horror to some extent. In the VHS cut, Kayako and Toshio did not appear in their full forms until later on, which created an even stronger sense of despair. If Kayako and Toshio showed up earlier, it would cause certain issues.
The problem was that they would no longer be as mysterious. In the VHS version, the film built its horror through the sudden deaths of characters, brief glimpses of body parts, and fleeting apparitions, making viewers both fearful and curious about the true identity of the ghosts. All of this served as foreshadowing, setting up the terrifying impact of their full appearance later.
That was why the later reveal felt so chilling. But in this storyline, Kayako and Toshio appeared with their full makeup and faces exposed. This ruined all the careful buildup that had come before.
Edward figured that Director Takashi Shimizu must have deleted those two storylines for exactly this reason, instead replacing them with Mizuo's plot. In Mizuo's storyline, Toshio did appear, but mostly in the form of his feet—never with a full reveal.
(TN: Guys the names here are wrong, I ain't watching the movie at midnight to correct, not gonna happen.)
To avoid having his own movie fall into the same pitfall, Edward shot Hirohashi and Kazumi's scenes but also made certain revisions, ensuring the story wouldn't suffer too greatly.
In Hirohashi's scene, Toshio's appearance was kept extremely short—only a blurry glimpse of him clutching Hirohashi's face—before the shot immediately cut to Toshio's wide-open, pitch-black mouth.
As for Kazumi's storyline, Edward arranged things so that Kayako only appeared vaguely within the shadows, without ever clearly showing her face. This way, her mystery could be preserved, paving the way for her infamous crawl down from the attic later on.
But Corey had no idea about any of this.
He only noticed that the next name to appear was Kazumi.
"Kazumi? That girl who went to feed the rabbits? Why does it feel like everyone who lives in this house is doomed to die?" Corey thought to himself. He felt that he was starting to grasp the origin of the story. Yet he was still unclear about the nature of these evil spirits—where they came from, or how exactly the curse of the grudge was born.
He could only keep watching to find out.
Kazumi's experience, along with that of her classmate, quickly made Corey's face turn pale.
Ghosts appearing even in broad daylight, inside a school—this deeply unsettled him. After all, in traditional horror movies of the Pokémon world, spirits and malicious entities almost always struck at night. Yet Edward, completely disregarding convention, had ghosts coming out to kill in the middle of the day.
[Mizuo]
A new name flashed on the screen, leaving Corey even more confused.
By now, Corey could basically confirm that, as the narration had suggested, this house itself was the very core where the curse had accumulated. Yet he still couldn't understand why the man named Shunsuke had entered before without anything happening. And what about the Saeki family?
He noticed that the Tokunaga family's house was exactly the same as the Saeki household—that very same house Shunsuke had entered at the beginning. But what baffled him was why Shunsuke's storyline had been so abruptly cut off.
This mystery tugged at Corey's curiosity. The more he watched, the more absorbed he became, the deeper he was drawn into the film.
This time, he experienced everything directly from Mizuo's perspective: Mizuo arriving to find her boyfriend Hirohashi, encountering a teacher, but still unable to locate Hirohashi. At this point Corey, as the viewer, already knew the truth—Hirohashi was dead.
Soon after, the teacher left to search for Hirohashi, while Mizuo stayed behind in the faculty office at dusk, calling Hirohashi's home. His mother picked up.
On the phone, after exchanging a few words with Hirohashi's mother, Mizuo suddenly heard faint, fragmented noises—as if something was walking around. The sound was subtle, but immediately afterward, the call was disconnected.
A vague sense of dread welled up in Corey's chest. Just then, an image flashed in his mind: when Mizuo had been on the phone, a pair of deathly pale feet had been standing right behind her.
Corey whipped his head around in panic—but of course, nothing was there.
Meanwhile, the teacher still hadn't returned. Mizuo grew restless, wanting to leave, but still worried about her boyfriend. She cautiously peeked out into the hallway. Empty. Darkness had fallen outside, plunging everything into black. Swallowing nervously, Mizuo retreated back into the office.
She sat restlessly on a chair, fidgeting with the lamp. But as she flicked it on and off, the light suddenly went out altogether.
Leaning down, Corey—immersed in her perspective—noticed the plug had come loose.
He crouched down to push it back in, but just as his hand stretched forward, a pair of ghastly white feet darted past in front of him, followed by utter silence.
Corey's hand trembled. Panic flared. Then—amid the suffocating silence—the piercing sound of a ringtone suddenly shattered the air. The jarring ring struck his heart like a heavy hammer.
"This… this is Hirohashi's phone…" Corey 'remembered.'
Reaching out toward the phone, his hand brushed against something ice-cold. It wasn't the phone. It was a pair of feet—lifeless and cold as stone.
The table above him suddenly began to shake violently. Corey screamed in terror, scrambling out from beneath it, only to find the table hadn't moved at all. Only the phone was still ringing.
When he finally picked it up, the screen showed an incoming call from that same sequence of 444s. His trembling hands answered it—only to hear an ominous catlike meow on the other end.
The next instant, he felt his clothes being tugged. Lowering his gaze, he saw Toshio standing right beside him, glaring up with venomous eyes as the eerie meows echoed from his mouth.
The screen went black. A new name appeared.
Kazumi.
Though Corey's body was still quivering from the fear, his desire to uncover the mystery only grew stronger.
Who was that little boy? Why did he resemble Toshio? Why had Shunsuke's storyline been dropped so abruptly, replaced by the Tokunaga family's? Did the Tokunagas come before or after the Saekis? And who was that mysterious woman?
All these questions swirled in his mind, filling him with both confusion and dread. For a moment, his analytical thoughts pulled him out of the immersive fear. Casting a glance beside him, he noticed the middle-aged colleague seated next to him drenched in sweat, droplets threatening to fall at any moment. Clearly, he too was badly shaken.
Corey quietly sipped some water. He suspected Edward had done all this deliberately.
After all, the house used in Edward's film was modeled after the most common type of detached home in the League—exactly the sort many people dreamed of owning, often built with second floors and storage closets. And now, thanks to Edward Stone, that dream home had become a nightmare setting. For the first time, Corey felt glad that he had bought an apartment. At least it had no closets, and no attic.
His thoughts drifted as the film continued. With Kazumi's death, cries of shock rang out across the room. But the scene didn't end there—it transitioned directly into a coroner's office, where two officers from the Police were speaking with the pathologist.
From their conversation, Corey learned both Kazumi's and her classmate's gruesome fates.
The classmate's limbs had been forcibly twisted and broken, leaving her body fragmented. Yet the autopsy results revealed it hadn't been a homicide. Even more disturbingly, the coroner discovered a jawbone inside her body—one that didn't belong to her, but likely to the missing Kazumi.
Meanwhile, Hitomi had already returned home. As she was taking off her shoes, she called out for her children, but neither of them were there. Just then, the phone rang. It was Mizuo.
"This connects to Mizuo's storyline," Corey realized. By that logic, the events should flow together.
Thump, thump.
Footsteps echoed upstairs. From the corner of his eye, Corey caught sight of someone climbing the staircase. He immediately put down the phone and called out—but received no reply.
Unease spread through him. He knew Kazumi was dead. Hirohashi was dead. Even the tutor was dead. Whoever was upstairs now could not possibly be human.
But he had no choice. There were bloodstains on the floor. His fear mounted as he lifted his gaze. On the stairs ahead stood a figure in blood-soaked clothing—Kazumi, the girl who had once fed the rabbits.
"Kazumi? Is that you? Kazumi?" Hitomi's motherly instinct and desperate worry overcame her, trembling as she followed. Corey felt sorrow. At this point, she probably thought her daughter had suffered bullying at school. She had no idea that nothing could be undone now.
As Hitomi reached the top of the stairs, she caught a glimpse of Kazumi's back and called out. Instantly, the entire screening room seemed to plunge into ice. Every breath in the room stopped.
Kazumi raised her head. Her pupils rolled upward, then fell down again. Slowly, she turned her face.
Corey had already braced himself. He knew Kazumi was dead, her jaw missing. Yet when she truly turned, he couldn't help but gasp sharply, as his whole body was seized by a strange sensation, as though he were about to transcend reality itself.
Under Edward's masterful cinematography, Kazumi's horrific visage felt as if she were standing directly before him. He could even smell the faint metallic tang of blood—mixed with another odor that churned his stomach. Corey didn't know it, but it was the stench of a corpse.
That stench was unbearable, triggering a deep-seated genetic terror within humanity itself. It was instinct warning: here lies danger that threatens your life.
Yet in this moment, none of that mattered. Just staring at Kazumi's ghastly gaze from the staircase, Corey felt as though his heart had stopped beating. He even felt himself drifting into a state beyond existence.
The screening room erupted with screams. Outside, other colleagues cast sympathetic looks at them. How unlucky—they just happened to draw the short straw today. It was Friday, the day the review board finalized screenings for the upcoming week. Unfortunately, this coincided with Edward's latest film being submitted for review.
"I…" The middle-aged colleague sitting beside Corey rubbed his face. His legs were still trembling.
Corey patted his shoulder sympathetically. He knew this colleague lived in a similar kind of house. By sheer coincidence, he also had a son and a daughter, both high school age.
Corey wondered whether the man would even dare look at his daughter again after going home. Perhaps during the day it would be fine—but if he saw her standing on the staircase…
"I just remembered—I have something urgent at home…" the colleague coughed.
"Ah, but have you paid off the mortgage yet? The car loan? Do you have savings? Retirement funds? What about your kids' future expenses?" Corey asked with mock sympathy.
The man's face turned even paler. He silently sat back down.
Meanwhile, a female colleague nearby was visibly shaken, staring blankly into space as though in a daze. Yet seeing her trembling legs, Corey knew—she hadn't gone catatonic, just scared witless.
And being scared witless was fine. If things were this intense already, there were surely even more terrifying scenes to come.
Almost as if on cue, the next name appeared on screen.
Kayako.
"Kayako?" Corey muttered. He remembered Shunsuke's words at the beginning—Toshio's mother was Kayako, once his classmate.
At that moment, Corey was speaking with his wife on the phone. But his wife, Manami, said someone was knocking at the door and hurriedly hung up. Meanwhile, he realized Toshio was nowhere to be seen.
Entering the bathroom, Corey saw his hands smeared with blood, and a dead Litten lying in the bathtub. But in the very next instant, everything was gone—as if it had been an illusion.
Though shaken, Corey, still acting in the teacher's role, pressed onward to the second floor. This was the same staircase where Kazumi had turned her head.
And there, on the staircase, Corey faintly heard the voices of Toshio and his mother Kayako.
(End of Chapter)