One of the things I hate is (usually amateur stuff on YouTube) in which the person is getting overly scared even when it makes no sense.
Like they'll over act and start hyperventilating at a leaf and saying shit like "Oh my god what is that?!?!?! WHAT IS THAT?!?!" at like...a thud in the distance.
YouTube and Ghost Hunting shows seem to be the worst offender.
Another trope I hate is a horror game one but it's somewhat related; I hate it when the game tells you when to be scared by having a "sanity" effect or by the player character gasp or scream or whatever. Worst is if they have some kind of heartbeat sound effect that plays when you're supposed to be spooked.
But yeah, if a character starts saying shit like "WhAt ThE FuCk WaS ThAt?!" then I just get more annoyed than scared.
Don't forget the bad guy has to be disabled. Physically deformed, neurodivergent, something that somehow translates to them being evil.
CW transmedicalism
Alternatively, the character can be clearly coded as a closeted trans woman, but then you need to have some psychiatrist lecture people "no, this is actually not a transs***al, but somebody who is only consumed completely by dreams of living as a woman full-time because of this contrived fetish that nobody has ever heard of before (because i just made it up)."
Yes, this means that Ray Blanchard is literally Hanibal Lecter if Hanibal Lecter was a complete idiot.
The movie, Bone Tomahawk, takes this one step further and has a Native American man talk to a group of white people and tells them "these aren't real Native Americans you're up against." I was expecting eldritch horrors with tentacles and bird heads who spit acid or some shit. Nope! Just some cannibals coming to steal white women!
At least we got to see a settler cleaved in half from crotch to head, so that was nice. Really fucking weird decision to do the "not really trans" trope combined with a racism.