If you’re hunting for classic monsters done right, I’d skip the usual modern paranormal stuff and look back a bit. ‘Dracula’ obviously, but also check out Richard Laymon’s ‘The Traveling Vampire Show’. It’s got that greasy, sweaty Americana vibe with a carnival barker vampire, and it’s unsettling in a way slicker books aren’t.
A lot of ‘top rated’ lists push newer books that are more thrillers with monster veneers. For a proper creature-feeling, I stumbled on ‘The Hollow Places’ by T. Kingfisher recently. It’s sort of a weird doorway story, but the thing in the water... it’s got that old-school ‘thing where it shouldn’t be’ dread. Works better for me than most werewolf novels, which lately just feel like shifter romances with extra fur.
Honestly, Goodreads lists can be a mess for this. The algorithm mixes everything. I had better luck searching ‘Gothic horror novels with monsters’ and sorting by rating, then ignoring anything with a cartoonish cover.