story about a werewolf or vampire could be described as dark fantasy, while a story about a serial killer would simply be horror. Stableford suggests that the type of horror conveyed by fantasy stories such as William Beckford's Vathek and Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death "is more aesthetic than visceral or existential", and that such stories should be considered "dark fantasies" rather than the "supernaturalized thrillers" of conventional horror fiction. Karl Edward Wagner is often credited for creating the term "dark fantasy" when used in a more fantasy-based context. Wagner used it to describe his fiction about the Gothic warrior Kane. Since then, "dark fantasy" has sometimes been applied to sword and sorcery and high fantasy fiction that features anti-heroic or morally ambiguous protagonists. Another good example under this definition of dark fantasy is Michael Moorcock's saga of the albino swordsman Elric. The fantasy work of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and their emulators have been specified as "dark fantasy", since the imaginary worlds they depicted contain many horror elements. Dark fantasy is occasionally used to describe fantasy works by authors whom the public primarily associates with the horror genre. Examples of these are Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, Peter Straub's Shadowland and Clive Barker's Weaveworld. Alternatively, dark fantasy is sometimes used for "darker" fiction written by authors best known for other styles of fantasy; Raymond Feist's Faerie Tale and Charles de Lint's novels written as Samuel M. Key would fit here. Other media Anime and manga Berserk, a manga and anime franchise by Kentaro Miura that debuted in 1989, is frequently noted as an example of the genre due to its depictions of extreme violence, moral ambiguity, apocalyptic storylines and anti-hero protagonists. Attack on Titan is a dark fantasy for its intense violence and the dystopian world it takes place in. Films Ridley Scott's film Legend (1985) has been described as a "dark fairy tale" fantasy film. Guillermo del Toro's fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth (2006) has been described as a "sort of a dark spin on Alice in Wonderland". See also References External links "On Dark Fantasy"—author Lucy Snyder's essay on the differences between "pure" horror and dark fantasy. Horror genres Horror fiction Fantasy genres