This film begins by showing a small village in  the city of Mumbai, India. Here we get introduced

to our main characters: Michael, and his newly  pregnant wife, Maria. Enchanted by the beautiful

city, Michael suggests that they should move and  live in Mumbai permanently. He then walks up to a

random little girl, and asks her if staying here  forever with his wife is a good idea, but then:

We then move to 6 years later, with Maria  waking up from a bad dream, and starts weakly

hitting her Michael, looking upset over something.  While Michael calms her down, the camera pans to a

family of Michael and Maria with their two kids:  a son named Oliver and a daughter named Lucy.

Next morning, the couple start their day by  having breakfast with their daughter Lucy,

and their dog Winston. Here we notice something  odd: the little boy in the family picture we saw

earlier, Oliver, is nowhere to be seen. All in  all, the family go about their day normally:

and they also have a maid whose name is Piki. After breakfast, as Michael gets ready to

leave for work, Maria can be seen having a  mental breakdown, while Piki the maid watches

her with pity. They’ve been actually  living in Mumbai for the past 6 years.

Later that night, Michael comes home to find  that his Maria has fallen asleep watching old

family videos, one which features the four of them  playing piano together. Michael solemnly watches

his son Oliver in the video, before walking up  to his wife to pull up the comforter. However, an

empty bottle of pills falls, and as it turns out,  Maria isn’t asleep: she overdosed on something.

Michael calls an ambulance, while the unconscious  Maria recollects a tragic memory from her past,

wherein she was in a car  accident with their two children.

The car is drowning fast, as she tries to pull  her kids loose from the seatbelts. She manages

to free her daughter Lucy, but unfortunately,  Maria finds Oliver’s leg is stuck under car seat.

Unable to free Oliver in time,  the little boy drowns to death,

but Maria manages to carry Lucy to the surface.  Maria screams for help and attempts to swim

back down to retrieve Oliver, but the locals  keep her from jumping back into the water.

Back in the present, she is now  hospitalized, but worry not,

Michael is told by a doctor that  his wife is going to be fine.

Having noticed how unwell Maria has been, Piki  the maid comes up to Maria at the hospital,

and says she knows a way to bring back her son  so she can say goodbye. Piki then begins telling

a story about a temple in the woods just outside  of her home village, that is said to blur the line

between the realms of the dead and the living.  Piki also confesses that she knows what grief

feels like, because she lost her daughter too. Apparently, to communicate with the dead,

Maria simply has to bring the ashes of her son  and spread it along the steps of the temple,

then lock herself inside the temple at  night, and wait until the son comes to her.

According to Piki, Maria is going to be able to  talk with her son through the door of the temple,

so they can say their final goodbyes. When Maria has recovered and finally returns home,

she ponders about what Piki had said to  her about the temple. Later that day,

she watches Piki praying by a shrine for her  late daughter. Noticing Maria’s presence, Piki

instantly realizes that Maria is intrigued by the  idea about communicating with Oliver again. Thus,

Piki explains that when Maria has a conversation  with Oliver, there is one catch: Maria must keep

the door shut, no matter what he says or how  much he pleads she must not open the door.

Maria agrees to these terms, and  the two proceed to the graveyard,

where several men can be seen  digging up Oliver’s casket.

When the casket is opened, Maria  insists on seeing Oliver’s dead body,

and even goes as far as reaching for  Oliver’s favorite plushie, Khan the Tiger,

but she jumps in shock when  she sees Oliver’s rotting arm.

They proceed to throw a funeral pyre, with  several seemingly random tribesmen in attendance,

watching and praying alongside Piki. Piki  explains that they are the Aghori people:

they cover themselves in dead people’s ashes,

and feeds off of the dead because they believe  that it helps them communicate with the dead.

Afterwards, Piki takes Maria to the train station,

and assures her that she will inform Michael  about what’s going on so Michael doesn’t worry.

Maria sets off on her journey  to the remote village.

The next day, she gets dropped  off just outside the woods,

and promptly enters it. From that point on, she  continues on foot until she finds the temple,

passing several dead crows along her path. Maria climbs up the steps and enters the temple.

She walks outside to spread the ashes along  the steps as instructed, and heads back to the

temple. Maria then locks herself inside, holding  a candle in her hands, and waits for nighttime.

When the night comes, Maria begins hearing someone  breathing from inside the temple, which piques her

curiosity and makes her move to explore deeper  into the temple, wherein she finds a cave.

This is where it gets weirder: she feels a  gush of wind blowing near her as if someone

just passed her, followed by another  gush of wind which blows out her candle.

She lights a match, and finds  a crow falls dead to her feet,

and decomposes almost  instantaneously before her eyes.

She is also startled by a mummified woman  holding her face buried in her hands.

When the lighter dies, the spooked Maria  makes her way back to the main hall, and tries

calling her son’s name. And then suddenly, the  entrance door to the temple start banging hard,

until the banging stops and  she hears Oliver’s voice.

Relieved and excited beyond measure, Maria  presses her ear to the door, while saying

sorry for leaving Oliver to die. Oliver of course  doesn’t blame her, but being the little kid he is,

he tries to open the door, wanting to come in to  hold his mom. Knowing it is against the rules,

Maria tells him she’s not allowed to open the door  with a heavy heart. Hearing this, Oliver begins

crying, and says he has to go back where he came  from. Maria begins to panic because she wants more

time to talk to Oliver, so she eventually  does something she isn't supposed to do:

However, she finds no one outside. She frantically  calls for Oliver, and when she turns around...

Shocked and scared, Maria runs away from  the temple. Meanwhile, inside the temple,

the ominous statue inside begins to crack. Back home in Mumbai, Michael is still awake

at night, when suddenly Winston the dog  starts barking despite no one being outside.

On the next day, little Lucy is playing in  her room, when she hears a noise coming from

outside. She runs out and finds Khan, Oliver’s  favorite plushie, on top of the stair landing.

She picks it up, and starts leaving but  then, the door of oliver's room open.

Later that day, Maria returns  home, and upon her return,

Michael expresses his disappointment in her  because her sudden absence got him worried sick.

Maria quickly apologizes, saying she was trying  to get better, and they share a loving embrace.

At night, Maria is woken up by the sound of  Winston barking, prompting her to take the

dog outside the room. Soon after, she decides  to pay her sleeping daughter a visit because

she misses her. But then out of nowhere, she  hears the floor creaking inside the bedroom as

if someone is inside with her, so she listens in  for a bit but quickly decides to brush it off.

On the next morning, Maria finds  Lucy singing in Oliver’s bedroom,

and tells her to play someplace else. As Maria begins to leave, the toy box inside the

room topples over, spilling alphabet cubes that  spell ‘Oliver.’ Yet again brushing away her fear,

Maria cleans it up and heads downstairs  to join Lucy, during which she pauses

in horror as she finds Khan the tiger  plushie sitting on top of the piano.

Not looking scared in the slightest, Lucy  says she wants to show Maria something.

She then begins playing a song they  used to play with Oliver on the piano,

right when the piano continues playing on its own. 

Now realizing that Oliver’s spirit is with them,

Maria decides to wash the tiger  plushie while crying in grief.

When she tucks Lucy in that night, Lucy  begs her not to tell Michael about all this,

because it seems like Oliver is hiding  from something but he won’t tell Lucy what.

Afterwards, Maria pays a visit to Oliver’s  room and places the tiger plushie on the bed.

But all of the sudden, a storybook falls from the  shelf and a chair gets dragged closer to the bed.

Instantly understanding the request, Maria  begins reading a bedtime story for ghost Oliver.

When Michael the husband returns home later,  Maria embraces him gleefully, which confuses him.

Unbeknownst to the little  family, out in the courtyard,

leaves start falling and rot immediately.

That night, Maria wakes up from her sleep

to find Khan the plushie sitting  right in front of her on the bed.

Not only that, she hears Oliver calling for her.

But then...

Maria wakes up for real this time:  luckily, it was all just a dream.

In the morning, Piki notices that  one of the house plants has died.

The family’s gardener then comes up to her,  and takes her outside to show that every single

plant in the yard has mysteriously dried up and  died too, along with all the fish in the pond.

At that moment, Lucy starts screaming: as it turns  out, the family’s pet birds have died as well.

Piki looks to Maria with concern and  tells her about the fish and the trees.

Maria then takes Lucy to dump the  birds’ dead bodies in the ocean,

as Indians do with the dead. But out  of nowhere, when Maria turns around...

They are freaked out by Aghori tribesman who  chants while lathering ash on Maria’s face.

They take a three wheeler taxi, but gets stopped  because there has been a car accident ahead.

Curious, Maria walks up to the  commotion and finds a man lying dead...

They make it home safely, and we skip to later  the evening, during which a thunderstorm rages

outside. Lucy is awake, watching TV, while we  see Oliver’s figure standing in the background.

Afterwards, when Maria bathes Lucy,  she discovers that Lucy has bite mark.

Lucy voices that she doesn’t like  Oliver anymore because he’s mean to her.

Enraged by what Oliver has done, Maria visits  Oliver’s room to confront him about the bite mark.

Instead of responding in a cooperative way, Oliver  slides the story book closer and makes her sit

on a chair. Maria tries refusing but Oliver  violently swings the door shut. A bit scared,

Maria agrees to read him a story but tells him to  never hurt Lucy again. Later on, Maria receives

a phone call from Michael, who informs her  that he´s going to come home late tonight.

The mother sleeps next to Lucy that night, and  wakes up when she hears piano playing off key.

She heads downstairs to check out the piano, and  finds the tiger plushie disemboweled on the floor.

Someone then knocks on the door so she comes out, and finds an Aghori tribesman out in the yard. She

threatens to call the police but the man wouldn´t  budge, instead, he points at a spot behind her,

and when she finally looks back, a  scary figure crawls up towards her.

She fearfully escapes the  figure and returns inside.

Piki who witnessed this, confronts her and  says that because Maria has broken the rule,

Oliver’s soul who is not meant to  be in this world is now putrefied.

Plus, the scary figure who tried  to attack her outside was Myrtu,

the gatekeeper of the underworld, is now awake and  has escaped the temple through the opened door.

Myrtu is here to take Oliver back to the world  of the dead and will kill everything in her path.

Piki then tells Maria to burn every possession  of Oliver to keep him from being tethered to

this realm anymore. Unwilling to let Oliver go,  Maria calls Piki insane and returns upstairs.

Here she finds Lucy is crying sitting  on the bed while facing the wall.

She then approaches her little daughter, but as it turns out,

It is actually not the real Lucy. On the next day, the family goes out for lunch.

Maria who is scared of being home suggests to  her oblivious husband that they should take

a family trip to visit their relatives,  an idea which Michael happily welcomes.

But then, Maria starts seeing  cockroaches everywhere.

Lucky for her though, it’s just her hallucination.  She snaps out of it and the two realize that Lucy

isn´t in the resto. Overcome with worry, Maria  who hears Lucy’s voice outside decides to venture

the alleyways to look for her, until she briefly  comes across Lucy running and chases after her.

She then arrives at a dead end,  and instead of seeing her daughter,

she sees Myrtu move to attack her,

only disappearing when  Michael shows up holding Lucy.

While this is going on, back at the family’s  residence, Piki gets busy trying to get rid

of every single reminder of Oliver in the  house. After dumping the very last trash

bag to join the pile, she returns inside  to retrieve a can of gasoline, but then,

all the doors swing shut and she is locked  in. Shortly after, the door opens and she

goes outside to burn Oliver’s things, but the  figure of her dead daughter surfaces from the

pond water, and begins calling for her. Of course it isn’t actually her daughter:

it is Oliver disguising himself as her dead  daughter. Drawn by her daughter’s voice,

Piki goes to investigate and finds  her daughter's red ribbon in the pond.

Later that day, the family arrives home, to find  Oliver’s things bundled up in a pile of trash bags

outside the house. As they explore their yard,  Maria screams very loudly and calls Michael.

Here the husband discovers the horrific  sight of Piki lying dead in the pond.

They promptly hold a funeral pyre for Piki:  Michael attends while Maria stays home with Lucy.

When she tucks Lucy in for the night, Lucy  asks her if Oliver killed piggy to which she

says that it was just an accident , and Maria lets Winston to sleep with her.

Right after leaving Lucy’s room, Maria who has  realized that she has to make things right now,

goes outside and burns Oliver’s things.

We can see a figure standing behind Maria

while she watches Oliver’s stuff burn. As she  is outside, Maria is called back to the house,

when she hears the dog barking in Lucy’s room.  Surprisingly, Lucy is no longer on her bed,

so Maria begins looking for her  around the house, until she finally

finds Lucy sitting on a swing in the garden. Maria then runs up to Lucy and hugs her in relief.

At the same time, Michael arrives home, and it is  at this point that Michael realizes that Maria has

set fire to Oliver’s stuff out in the yard,  which makes him furious. He tries salvaging

what’s left to no avail while Maria explains that  everything must burn because Oliver came back from

the dead and killed Piki. Michael who has no idea  of what’s going on of course thinks she’s insane.

Maria tries to get Lucy to corroborate  but for some reason she won’t.

Having had enough, Michael decides to  take Lucy back to her room to tuck her in,

but when Michael is looking away  Maria notices Lucy’s eyes turn weird.

She now realizes Oliver has possessed Lucy,

but Michael still doesn’t believe her. The husband takes the

possessed Lucy in his arms and locks Maria in the  bedroom while promising to get Maria some help.

On his way outside, he finds the Aghori tribesmen  gathering in the yard, loudly chanting and yelling

in Sanskrit. The husband returns inside, and  reaches for his phone to call the police. While

the possessed Lucy is left alone, Winston  starts barking at her, which annoys her,

so she reaches for a knife and stabs  Winston the dog, killing the poor dog.

Michael runs up to her in horror,  and she stabs him in the gut.

It is then that the possessed girl admits  that she is no longer Lucy, but Oliver.

On the other side of the house, Maria breaks  through the door and looks for Michael.

She then finds the possessed Lucy  in Oliver’s bedroom, surrounded by

the tribesmen who are performing a ritual,  presumably to exorcise Oliver out of Lucy.

Right outside the bedroom, Myrtu appears  and begins crawling up the staircase.

One of the tribesmen moves to stab the  little girl, but Michael stops him.

Maria pleads and convinces Oliver to leave Lucy’s  body alone, by promising that Maria would keep him

company this time. So Oliver leaves Lucy’s body,  and enters Maria’s body, before she is immediately

stabbed by the Aghori.

The next time she wakes  up, she finds herself alone inside Oliver’s room,

face to face with Myrtu herself. Myrtu walks up to her and reveals her face :

This time, Maria finds herself waking up on the  steps outside the temple, and briefly believes

that she’s alive, while Michael’s voice can  be heard calling for her. She finally realizes

that she is dead, and Michael has summoned  her here to say his proper goodbyes to her.

Maria then screams for him not to open the door,  but he opens it and the terror repeats once again.