In 1832, a chemistry doctor called Iosif Gamel presents his thesis to the Imperial Science Academy of Saint-Petersburg which says that the new lens made out of a new type of silver can not only capture light, but also a person's soul.

This proves to be true despite the academy rebuking Gamel, resulting in the creation of a ritual, in which the souls of dead people are transferred into another body.

A photographer is then shown taking pictures of his dead wife (called The Bride) with carved-out wooden eyes planted on her eyelids.

When the photographer and his fellow participants in the ritual open up the coffin, they see that the wife's soul has been transferred.

Ivan notices her, and tells her to run as she encounters a white skinned spirit in a black wedding dress.

In it, she walks into the same house, but in the same period as in the beginning of the film, where the photographer goes upstairs to see his wife after she has become reportedly ill. A friend tries to convince him not to go, but he goes anyway.

After killing him, The Bride turns around and says that "she" (referring to another female person) will take her, before attacking Nastya, waking her up.

Nastya attempts to escape but is bound up by the ritual members and locked up in a room where she encounters the living skeleton possessed by the spirit of The Bride.

Nastya is brought back to the manor, where she gets the red-diamond ring put on so that The Bride's soul can be transferred.

Ivan, who had managed to survive the car crash, makes it back to the house and finds the unconscious Nastya.

Nastya, remembering about the photograph, goes to the room where she found it, encountering the children there but The Bride's spirit appears.