How much The Shining is intended to be an allegory about domestic violence is unclear, but, as Eleanor Johnson points out in her convincing and illuminating new book, Scream With Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (1968–1980), it doesn’t actually matter. In feeling out what really scares us, horror often connects with its cultural moment by accident, she contends; art forms like it help an audience process social anxieties “long before a culture is fully prepared to grapple with those problems and traumas in mainstream public discourse.” And because it triggers an intensely physical response and denies viewers the catharsis of a happy ending, horror imprints its imagery and ideas on us long after the movie ends.