Samara Morgan

Anna Morgan bred horses with her husband Richard and wanted a child. After four miscarriages, the couple adopted Samara. She had a gift: she could burn images onto objects and into people's minds. The horses began to panic, and her parents shut the girl away in a barn loft. Rachel pieces this together while following the tape to Moesko Island. On a hidden video, Samara herself apologizes and says "they won't stop". Anna dropped her into the well beneath the lodge, where Samara survived a week before dying.

The tape shows abstract images, and whoever watches it gets a phone call whispering "seven days". Victims turn up with distorted faces, and the marks show in their photos first. Rachel sees the well and hears the girl's warning. When she buries the body she thinks it is over. But Samara didn't want rest. She wanted the tape to keep being copied and shown to others. Rachel gets it when she watches Noah die, as Samara climbs out of the TV and walks toward him.

In Astoria Samara changes targets. She wants a child, and Aidan, who is sensitive, is the pick. The opening scene picks up the short Rings: Jake Pierce, on day seven, tries to pass the tape to a classmate. Aidan starts to bruise and to fear water, and Samara goes as far as taking his place. Rachel learns that Samara's birth mother, Evelyn, tried to drown her as a baby. To keep her son, Rachel has to put Samara back in the well.

In Rings the tape becomes a research subject and goes viral. Julia, the new lead, watches it and sees images no one had seen. They lead to a town where Samara's mother, Evelyn, was held captive, and to Samara's father, Galen Burke. Julia and her boyfriend Holt cremate the body to end it. Instead, the Braille mark on her hand translates to one word: rebirth. Samara settles inside Julia, and the tape begins to circulate on computers.

In the books she is Sadako Yamamura. She is the daughter of the psychic Shizuko Yamamura, born on Izu Oshima island, and her powers fuse with the smallpox virus to form the "Ring virus". In Ring no one sees her; you only learn who she was. Sadako takes on weight again in Spiral, which inspired Rings (2017), and in Birthday, a collection of stories about her. The books are by Koji Suzuki (1991 to 2012).