The film opens on an airplane. A young man named Carter (Zach Roerig) looks distressed. The woman next to him, Faith (Laura Wiggins), asks him what's wrong. Carter explains that a week ago, he watched a video with disturbing images, and then he received a phone call telling him he would die in seven days, five minutes from the current time. Carter goes to the bathroom as the plane starts to experience turbulence. Faith's friend Kelly (Lizzie Brochere) comes back and hears the story from Faith. Kelly freaks out because she's seen the video too. She goes to the bathroom to get Carter. The plane then starts to go down. Black sludge oozes out of the bathroom. Carter backs away, and from the cockpit emerges a swarm of flies. On the monitor, Carter sees Samara Morgan (Bonnie Morgan) emerge from a well and out into the plane.Two years later, a college student named Skye (Aimee Teegarden) is at a yard sale and sees a VCR with some tapes. A professor named Gabriel (Johnny Galecki) mentions that the stuff came from Carter's father after he died in the plane crash.Later that night, after Gabriel and Skye have slept together, Gabriel tweaks the VCR and out pops the dreaded tape. Gabriel watches it and sees weird images before the phone rings. A voice on the other line simply says "Seven days". The rain outside then starts moving upward.We meet Julia (Matilda Lutz) and her boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe). Holt is going off to college. Later, the two have a Skype chat, but Holt gets pulled away by his roommates to go hang out.Julia has a dream that Holt goes to visit her, but it turns into a nightmare when she sees something frightening come at her. She wakes up and sees she's getting a video call from Holt. Julia answers it, but it's Skye looking panicked and claiming that "she" is coming.Julia drives to Holt's college to investigate. She goes into his dorm room and finds his class schedule. Julia sneaks into Gabriel's class to look for Holt, but nobody will tell her where he is. She continues walking through the building and comes across a book