They were pretty clearly stealing from Robert E, Howard’s **Hour of the Dragon[/NB] (AKA Conan the Conqueror), where the Sorceror Xaltotun gets resurrected that way. Evidently they thought "Xaltotun: too long, and too obvious a giveaway. If you look in Howard;s work, it’s got a lot of resurrected beings.
Lebentod, Bowlyn, Jolly Roger, Spirit Waif, Geist, Ghoul, Ghast, Wraith, Spectre, Shadow, Mohrg, Bodak, Dracolich, Death Knight, Porcelain Lady, Rayvathna, Stitched, Bussengeist, Ghost Brute, Slain, Slaymate, Necropolitan, Crawling Claw, Vassalich… just rattling off some D&D undead off the top of my head. There are literally dozens more, I’m sure…
ETA: oh, and don’t forget Atropal Scion: a.k.a undead god fetus. (yes, really)
In the Prydain Chronicles Lloyd Alexander writes of the invincible undead warriors, (known as “The Cauldron Born”).
Wait, wait wait. John Taylor died? Which book was this?
Nightingale’s Lament; Dead Boy took his life ( with consent ) so they could both go get back Rossignol’s soul from the borderlands of death.
Gamera, the flying turtle of Japanese monster fame.
Well, it might be closer to say there’s more than one Gamera. But Gamera blew himself up in the early 70’s, to save some people and kill his foe. “He sacrificed himself for US!”
Then, a new Gamera was born in 2006’s Gamera the Brave.
How about old timey vampires. The stuff of legeneds. Desecration of a superstition by a superstition. Killing Pagan traditions with Christianity. Stealing peoples breath, unknown forces in the night from undead… Bad Luck…Heart Impaled… No witches available, so blame it on the witching corpse… Necrophilia, Grave Robbing, and Desecration are not far behind. Damnation.
If you want to stretch the definition of “monster”, there’s those priests in the Hyperion/Endymion books…