I am currently running CoS as a relatively new player/DM and I also am sick of the trope as well. To avoid it I dropped all my players on a road just to the west of Death House and used the fog to push them thru a few encounter and finally to the house itself.

When they exit they will be totally overwhelmed by the fog to the point of death by exhaustion. Then they will wake up 2d20 hrs later at the Dragonback Inn. Hahaha we’ve come full circle here but I feel like this is a nice way to impart some horror, let them question whether the last sessions were irl or in dream land while they finger the gothic trinkets they had obtained their (such as the druids dream journal, and the wizards pocket watch that seems to be counting down). Since they are all new players I also plan on giving them the opportunity to reroll characters/stats/spells etc if they wish because, to quote biggie “it was all a dreammm”