Kylo Ren's fall and redemption

Ben Solo was the secret lover of Evelyn. His keeper named Burke, a priest who held Evelyn captive in a dungeon in a church, he raped her just as she was eight months pregnant, and flee to a hospital run by nuns. After struggling in labor, she gave birth to Samara but found that her baby would not cry. Ben apparently told her that he is a force and the only wait to save Evelyn from death was to turn to the dark side. Whether or not this was Evelyn's own psyche or Ben's powers telling her to do this remains unknown. A nun spotted Evelyn attempting to flee Ben and led a group of nuns to stop her. Ben escaped whilst Evelyn was sent to an asylum.

Ben Solo was eventually discovered by Anna and Richard Morgan and taken to live on their horse ranch on Moesko Island. However, as he became influenced with knowledge of the force, Ben's powers began to develop and grow, unintentionally frightening Samara's parents by tapping into their minds. The island's doctor sent them to Eola County Psychiatric Hospital for treatment. Anna was treated for depression and suicidal thoughts, whilst Ben was treated differently, examined and observed for hours on end. He displayed his force powers by creating images on transparency materials and film. Doctor Scott interviewed Ben who responded that Richard plans to leave him in the hospital. Doctor Scott eventually died, likely killed by Ben. On the contrary, Richard eventually had Anna and Ben discharged and took them back to the ranch.

To prevent Ben from harming anyone, Richard sent im into the ranch's barn, turning the top floor into his isolated bedroom with a ladder as the only means of access. Left alone, Ben had only a television set for company. He also burnt an image of a tree onto a wall, hidden behind wallpaper. Ben was awaken at night by the ranch horses. Out of anger and jealously, Ben physically attacked the horses with his lightsaber. The horses went insane and committed suicide by jumping over a cliff, their corpses found on a beach below. At least twenty-seven horses died, and the newspapers called it an epidemic. Anna heavily affected by the deaths and was sent back to the hospital for several days. The ranch was quarantined for five weeks by health experts but they could not find any source of the deaths, unaware of Ben's presence.

Anna was released from the hospital five days later. To escape the chaos, the family visited Shelter Mountain Inn. Anna revealed ulterior motives for going to the mountain. One sunny day, Ben stood before an old stone well admiring a tree on a hilltop when Anna appeared behind her, commenting on how peaceful the place was. She suddenly produced a black metallic mask and gave it to Ben Solo to put on and then renamed him Kylo Ren. Apologizing to Kylo, Anna defeating him in a fight. Recovering quickly, Kylo awoke to witness Anna escaping him in the light. Anna committed suicide moments later by jumping off a cliff. It is unknown if Richard was aware that Anna planned to kill Kylo but returned to the ranch alone.

Kylo spent the next seven days trying to search for Anna, only to fail and retreat to Shelter Mountain Inn in the process. He eventually became immersed by the dark side. However, his identity lingered on, longing for help and attention. A set of rental cabins were built around the area, Cabin 12 built on top of the well. With a television and a VCR set placed right above the well, Kylo managed to begin his search for Rachel.

Almost thirty years on, Kylo Ren's video tape was eventually found by four teenagers who visited Shelter Mountain Inn - Katie Embry, Josh Turandot, Stacey Nyugen and Scott Conroy. In an attempt to record a football match, they instead found and watched the video and were informed via telephone that they would become his servants. Unaware that they had to copy the tape to cheat death, the four eventually became evil a week later. Kylo personally killed Katie, making her the first victim of the dark man. Stacey and Scott died in a car crash, whilst Josh supposedly jumped off a seven-story building, possibly influenced by Kylo in a similar fashion to the horses.

The tape was found by Katie's aunt Rachel, an investigator, and was given the same seven days deadline to copy the tape. Rachel, Noah and later their son Aidan all watched the tape and worked together to track down the source of the video, discovering it was made by Kylo. Kylo himself appeared to Rachel in a dream and visited Aidan offscreen repeatedly, showing him images of his past and eventually harmed him by sliced through his hand, Aidan realizing he should be redeemed. Rachel visited Richard on the ranch but his memories of Kylo's images eventually lead him to killing himself via electrocution. Rachel and Noah search Kylo's room and find the image of the tree. Returning to Shelter Mountain, the two find the well under Cabin 12. Rachel is knocked into the well by the cabin's television and finds Ben Solo's vision although it quickly turns back into Kylo Ren when exposed to the air. Rachel has a flashback of Ben being turned evil. Kylo Ren is later taken away by the authorities.

However, the release of Kylo Ren is not enough for the man. Still wanting the world to know his fate, the curse continues. Kylo appears in Noah's room, now a powerful man, and enters the room. A frightened Noah tries to flee but falls over and injures himself. Kylo walks over to him and reveals his masked face, impaling him to death. Rachel finds Noah's body and is a maddened rage she destroys the original tape and burns it. However, realizing she survived by copying the tape, she helps Aidan copy the video to save him, sending the video off to continue the curse.

In the short film Rings, the cursed video tape has spread across America and perhaps the world as a cult, with groups of teenagers called "Rings" each watching the tape, recording what they see and putting it on a website, and if they panic they can hand the tape over to the next person in the ring. This allows Kylo's goal to get attention to work but no one who watches the video understands what is happening, and their goal is to see if anyone can make it past the seventh day, despite being aware of the death penalty that awaits them.

Kylo Ren appears only in glimpses throughout the short, stalking victim Jake and others who survived or have yet to redeem him. In a dream sequence, when Jake's seven day deadline ends, Kylo attempts to materialize into Jake's house through his television. Jake brakes the glass of the television, but Kylo still manages to appear before him. Jake uses a video camera to record him, but he telekinetically punches through the video camera's screen to get to him. It turns out to be a dream and Jake contacts his friend Emily so she can watch the tape.

The Ring Two continues straight on from Rings, with Jake trying to show Emily the tape and retreats into his kitchen as Emily watches the tape. However, upon seeing fire burn into the kitchen, he runs back into the living room to find that Emily covered her eyes. Jake collapses before the television set as Kylo walks in to kill him.

Rachel, who moved to Astoria with Aidan, finds his body in the back of an ambulance and is horrified by his deformed appearance. As she tries to zip up the body bag he is in, Kylo grabs her by the arm and enters the ambulance, proclaiming that he has found Rachel, revealing he always planned to win her, wanting to make Rachel his new wife due to his apparent caring nature towards her. Rachel locates the copied tape in Jake's house and destroys it. Seemingly with no tapes left despite the known copies that exist in the Rings cult, Kylo's masked form tracks down Rachel's new home and disturbs Aidan as he appears in his door and attempts to seduce him into the tape world, although this turns out to be a dream or a force vision.

The next day, Rachel and Aidan visit a fair, but Kylo stalks Aidan, alerting some nearby deer to his presence. In a public toilet, Aidan grows suspicious and takes photos of himself in a mirror, the photos later revealing that Kylo was behind him and lures him. This causes Aidan to gain the symptoms of hypothermia, reflecting on Ben's time spent as Kylo Ren. Kylo's presence causes Rachel to see Kylo as the man, Kylo using his powers to cut a giant tree image into the wall and ceiling of Aidan's room. Journalist Max Rourke becomes involved and learns of Kylo's existence, although he is skeptical. Aidan is placed in a bath but Kylo attempts to fully take control of the Ben Solo persona, causing the water in the bath to levitate into the air. Rachel saves Aidan but it looks like she is drowning her son.

Max forces Rachel to hospitalize Aidan under the care of Doctor Emma Temple. Rachel investigates Ben Solo's origins, meeting Evelyn who cryptically tells her that Kylo Ren must be redeemed. Aidan falls unconscious, allowing Kylo to became Ben once again, quite obsessive with finding his "wife". He influences Doctor Temple to kill herself with a lethal injection and leaves the hospital, eventually wandering to Max's house. Max arrives and attempts to take a photo of Kylo, but he catches on and kills him, somehow burning his face without the use of the tape although the curse could extend from his own will. Rachel returns, finds Max dead in his truck and realizes Kylo has influenced Aidan. In a dream, Aidan tells Rachel that Kylo must be redeemed.

Playing along with Kylo, Rachel approaches him and takes his hand. Taking Aidan to the bath, Aidan regains consciousness and agrees to go along with the brief submersion. A calm Kylo enters and is forced to leave drop the Kylo Ren persona, appearing as Ben Solo once again and sadly glares at Rachel before walking away. Aidan survives, but Kylo enters the room, and attempts to take Aidan as his son. However, Rachel approaches the television as Kylo enters and offers himself as a wife in place of Aidan. Kylo silently agrees and pulls Rachel into the tape world and into his house.

Seeing that house's light has been restored due to being in the tape world, Rachel begins to enter the well. Alarmed to this, Kylo emerges from the shadows at the house's lower floor and displays his true side, sensing fear in her he takes his mask off revealing the face of a young man and slowly catches up to Rachel as she reaches the light. Rachel sets the house on fire causing Kylo to redeem himself. Rachel manages to run out of the well as Kylo gladly takes Rachel into his arms. Rachel begins to rename him Ben Solo, but a distraught Ben calls out to her in a normal voice as "Rachel!". Rachel happily responds that she is his wife and covers the well, marrying Ben like Anna did. Rachel then escapes the tape world by following Aidan's voice and falls off a cliff into the ocean below, guided by a vision of Anna's suicide.