***Bewitching Eyes (فيلم عيون ساحرة - Oyoun Sahera)***

In 1934, Egyptian cinema unleashed a story so dark, it tells of a singer **(Delilah - دليلة )** hopelessly in love with a man **(Sami - سامي)** who worked alongside her at a casino. Their love was fiery, but he grew bored and abandoned her.

Desperate, she climbed into his car one night. In a blind rage, he sped through the streets — and the crash came. He died instantly and she survived, but grief shattered her mind.

Unable to endure his death, she descends into forbidden black magic. In the dead of night, she goes to his grave and chants incantations that make his corpse twitch and stir. His body moves within its shroud, but it is not truly alive. She discovers the horrifying truth: to fully resurrect him, she must use the blood of a virgin marked with a mysterious sign on her neck to anchor his soul.

Her crystal ball points her to a lottery seller girl **(Hayat - حياة)** with the same mark on her neck. Through alleys and crowded streets, she searched until she found the girl, and with hypnotic control, she lured the girl into the moonlit cemetery, dragging her to the grave.

There, she drained the girl’s blood, and poured it into the corpse of her lover. He rose—but no longer fully himself. The body she resurrected now housed the soul of the poor girl whose blood revived him, twisting his identity and desires.

Twisted, confused, and driven by unnatural urges, he seeks the girl whose life now flows inside him, and a forbidden, uncanny love ignited between them. Together, they plotted an escape, hoping to break the dark spell. The singer’s obsession became her torment—she lost him a second time, powerless before the horror she had unleashed. Then she snaps out of her stupor when the maid awakens her, realizing that everything she had witnessed was just a dream.

This is not a ***Black Mirror*** episode, nor a modern thriller. It is a 1934 Egyptian film, directed by **Ahmed Galal أحمد جلال** and produced by **Assia Dagher’s Lotus Film Company**—the same studio behind ***Saladin the Victorious 1963 - الناصر صلاح الدين***

Starring **Assia Dagher** **آسيا داغر** herself and **Mary Queeny ماري كويني** and **Abdel Salam Al Nabulsy عبد السلام النابلسي**, the film shocked audiences for the first time in the Egyptian Cinema with its dark mix of love, death, and black magic.

Religious authorities **(Al-Azhar الأزهر)** condemned it as blasphemous, calling it a call to heresy and said it is **forbidden حرام** to watch it, and the censorship banned it.

**Assia Dagher** pointed out that there was a science called hypnotism, and her film explored this concept. However, neither the censors nor **Al-Azhar** were convinced, and the controversy raged on. The situation escalated until the Egyptian Prime Minister at the time, **Abdel Fattah Pasha Yahya عبدالفتاح باشا يحي**, intervened and allowed the film to be screened.

The film was released, achieving a historic success, though the ending was softened to frame the story as just a dream the singer had !

Today, ***Bewitching Eyes 1934*** is lost. No copies survive anywhere.

The first Egyptian Occult film Banned for Blasphemy !