The Blair Witch Project: Melvin’s Feminist Hot Take of 2025

This movie was selected by our Patreon Supporters over at the Cinematic Doctrine Patreon. Support as little as $3 a month and have your voice heard! 

Shirleon joins Melvin to discuss one of the most influential horror movies of the modern era: The Blair Witch Project! How does it fare against modern horror? What does a first-time watcher think of the film? Did the Blair Witch cause Heather, Josh, and Michael to go missing or was something more sinister going on? And is the movie actually kind of, like, really feminist? Tune in and find out!

Topics:

• Editor’s Note: No Patreon Exclusive discussion! But, I do intend to trim this episode down from its original 1:56:19 length, so if you want to hear the UNCUT version, tune in on Patreon here!
• Opening with some background on the film, the genre, and dovetailing into their thoughts as a veteran and a newbie.
• Melvin begins his feminist diatribe, chronicling how the film may be an incidentally-feminist tragedy.
• How third-wave feminism in the 1990’s clashes with the witch-trials of the 1780s.
• Due to the film being shot without union protections, The Blair Witch Project continues to have a controversial legacy with updates as recent as Summer 2025.
• Melvin lands the plane as to why he reads the film in this way.
• Talking about the conventions of Found-Footage/In-World filmmaking.
• Against incredible adversity, traditional gender-norms showcase their fallibility and are replaced with mutual support.
• Talking about Heather Donahue’s great monologue at the end of the film.
• Discussing the “Josh & Michael are murderers” theory, and getting off the fence about it. 

Recommendations:

• Strange Houses: A Novel by Uketsu (2025) (Book)
• Strange Pictures: A Novel by Uketsu (2025) (Book)
• The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) (Movie)

The Blair Witch Project is Rated R for language. It features Rei Hance, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard. Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. The Blair Witch Project is available here.

Consider supporting Cinematic Doctrine on Patreon! As a bonus, you can gain access to a once-a-month movie poll where you decide a movie we discuss on the podcast, early unedited episodes of the podcast, and merch!!

Melvin Benson is the Founder, Editor-In-Chief, and Lead Host of Cinematic Doctrine. Whether it’s a movie, show, game, comic, or novel, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s rich, he’s ready and willing to give it a try! His hope is to see King Jesus glorified as far as the east is from the west!

Cinematic Doctrine is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and other major podcast apps.