As an avid reader of horror in my teens I have come to the conclusion that horror novels, for the most part, are crap. With the novel the reader demands an explanation for why the horrors are happening - zombies walk because of toxic waste, being one example.
Horror fiction truly lies in the short story and novella format - in these formats you do not need to give an explanation of why there's a big oily beast floating out on the water or why the Candyman, a man of myth, haunts a particular area. Simply put these things happen because they do...and that's what makes them frightening, the lack of explanation.
Also, looking a the books listed above I can't help but think you have misunderstood the place of theme in a book. Vampires and ghosts aren't particular good descriptions of themes, sure there are ghosts and vampires in the books but these are not what they are about. The Shining, for example, looks at social concerns such as alcoholism and family while also playing with the idea of conscious evil as witnessed first in Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.
