We appreciate that Egyptian cinema is trying to get involved in one of our favorite genres, horror. But as much as we appreciate that they tried hard, most of us might not be able to deny that Egyptian horror movies can be more hilarious than scary. Since Halloween night is upon us, here are seven Egyptian movies that were intended to be scary, but failed hilariously.
1) Juhanam Ambassador, 1954 – Youssef Bik Wahbi, the pioneer of scary Egyptian movies
Youssef Bik Wahbi presented what was supposed to be one of the first Egyptian horror movies. He played the devil who came to lure an Egyptian middle class family into a sinful life, away from the guarded boundaries set by Allah.
The movie is full of cheesy and poorly made scare jumps, plus pointless preaching speeches, the latter being Wahbi’s cinematic signature. The movie ends with a final “gruesome” reveal of the devil’s real face, seconds before it burns.
Apparently, the director decided that the horror content was too much for the audience, so the director decided to sooth up the end, making it a nightmare that the whole family shared.
Well, I can excuse this one because the horror genre worldwide was only a bit better back then, and Youssef Bik Wahbi managed to scare the helk out of me with some meaningless preaching speeches about ‘Juhanam.’
2) An Appointment with Satan, 1955 – Mahmoud Al-Miligy
One year after Mr. Wahbi’s grand “horror” success, Al-Maligi decided to star in the exact story with the exact conflict and the same ending.
There is nothing that we can excuse in this one. The scare jumps were even cheesier than the one before, and the story line didn’t make any sense. The only thing I can praise about this movie is Al-Miligy’s performance, a man who could make gold out of absolutely nothing.
3) The Woman who Lured the Devil, 1973 – Shams Al-Baroudy and Adel Adham
Egyptian cinema took an 18-year break from the “horror” genre and came back with a grand movie that left us speechless because it was downright hilarious.
Since creativity was/and still can be quite lacking, the story remains as the same old struggle between man and evil, except this time the man was portrayed by a woman who sells her soul to the devil, Adel Adham, in exchange for beauty and fortune.
The only scary thing about the movie was Shams Al-Baroudy’s performance, and we were the victims.
The thing I loved about the movie was Egyptian cinema’s most adorable villain, Adel Adham. Although his appearance didn’t help much with the horror factor, his charismatic persona was amusing.
4) Al-Ins Wel Jin, 1985 – Adel Imam And Yousra
The plot finally took a slightly different direction in Egyptian horror, as the conflict still portrayed humans vs evil forces, but here the evil forces wasn’t the Jin or Satan.
A very cheesy, illogical and one-sided love story between Adel Imam “Jin” and Yousra, it was a typical story of a stalker who doesn’t take no for an answer, and at the end, some Quran was read and ta da..the jin is in flames.
An ending that erased the point of Yousra’s suffering throughout the movie. If only she had a little bit of faith and read Quran before going to bed at the first scene, she wouldn’t have gone through all of this.
5) Al-ta’weeza, 1987 – Yousra and Mahmoud Yassin
Egyptian cinema dedicates itself to one story line every era, and refuses to go anywhere else, so here we have the evil forces of the same old Jin.
If we disregarded the cheesy scare jumps, the meaningless camera movements and Yousra’s pointless shower scenes, the ending isn’t so bad since it’s scary in a creative manner.
Away from the cheesy story and the terrible directing, the cast that includes Yousra, Mahmoud Yassin, Tahia Karioka and Abla Kamel surely cannot disappoint.
6) The Disappearance of Jafaar Al-Masry, 2002 – Nour Al-Sherif and Hussein Fahmy
An adaptation of the Spanish play “La barca sin pescado” by Alejandro Alvarez. Although the plot is deeply philosophical and the movie could disregard the horror factor easily and focus on that, the director nonetheless insisted on making it a horror movie but did not deliver.
Yet, we cannot deny the great performance by Sherif and Fahmy.
7) The Blue Elephant, part one, 2014 – Karim Abdelaziz and Nelly Karim. One of the few good Egyptian horror movies.
And The Blue Elephant, part two, 2019 – Karim Abdel-Aziz and Hend Sabry
These are actually scary movies. Not as good as Korean and American horror movies, but they did not disappoint us completely.
The first part is an adaptation of Ahmed Mourad’s novel with the same title, and the second part is an independent screenplay written by the same author.
The two movies made quite a fuss amongst the Middle Eastern audience when they were released, and received lots of well deserved praise.
The storyline didn’t make much sense in part one, as it felt somehow pushed, borrowed and lacked consistency.
Hend Sabry’s performance as the haunted woman in part two wasn’t very convincing 100% of the time. Although she is a brilliant actress, her performance here was leaning more on the funny side.
Lastly, an honorary mention for a movie did that didn’t manage to make neither a horror nor a comedy, a movie that just disappointed all of us, “Camp.” #CampMovieSurvivors.
You can binge-watch these movies for Halloween, as it won’t scare you a bit, and we promise you a hilarious experience with your friends and an endless amount of funny comments.
