One specific for ghost/haunting horrors (usually cheap B movie, but some big ones have done it too, by people, who haven't done even five minutes of research):
The creepy manor/house/castle set in some quaint, sleepy, rural European town. The house is haunted. They manage to commune with the spirit/demon or research lots and discover the reason for the haunting is... someone was killed here.
That's it. Like, 90% of Europe has been a battlefield at one point or another. Most towns are reaaaaally old. My school was built on a destroyed in battle Roman fort. You can go to some places in Europe and they put on a shameful tone as they explain unfortunately this building only dates back to the 1200s. Lots of dead people. Lots of murdered people.
I'm told this is a culture thing, since it's most often American writers writing places they've never been, and that most American towns are newer by a lot so they don't have this desensitization to this stuff but if everyone someone died unnaturally was haunted Europe would be overrun with ghosts. (Maybe we are and just don't realize...)
And history and research and culture aside please come up with a better reason that "someone was murdered" please.
More positively, I'm super fond of the "turn around and nothing was there" trope. It turns up in like every even vaguely spooky thing I've ever written. Love that one. Especially if nothing is constantly there. Not just the glance back and nothings there but then it turns up. Constantly nothing there. But something is. But you can't see it. Tension, you know.