Old-school vampire movies

[Jeivar]

A lot of pre-80's horror that I've seen has been... incoherent garbage. But I like to believe that at least some of the films that inspired "classic" vampire imagery (castles, crypts, crosses, corpses...) have to be at least watchable.

Sooo... any recommendations? Through the years I have seen The Vampire lovers, the faithful adaptation of Carmilla, and a couple of others whose names I have forgotten. Can anyone here recommend some more of the atmospheric oldies?

[Bhu]

A lot of people have praise for Nosferatu.

[Gnoman]

Having watched the orignal Bela Lugosi Dracula recently, it holds up extremely well despite a few special effects failures. Along the same lines, any of the original Universal horror movies are very well done, and I suspect your disappointment comes from the cheesefest of the 1950s.

[No brains]

Another +1 for Nosferatu. It probably opens sorta slow for modern tastes, but the buildup pays off.

[BWR]

Nosferatu is damn good (but I love most of the German expressionism movies, so I am a bit biased). As a friend of mine put it, it's far creepier than anything that old has a right to be.
The old universal Dracula movies are entertaining.

You might like to try out the Hammer Dracula movies with Christopher Lee (with and without Peter Cushing). Just be warned that as the series progresses the movies rapidly become crappier. These may very well be some of the ones you have seen. Much though I enjoy the Hammer horror flicks the company should probably have been called Hammy.