The Fifth Floor

The Fifth Floor is a fun little horror/women-behind-bars hybrid with a great cast. The story, about a go-go dancer railroaded into an asylum, is based on a truly horrifying premise: Under certain circumstances, everything you say or do can be interpreted as a sign of madness. This could've been a very dark, lurid nuthouse shocker, but, perhaps in a bid for respectability, the sleaze factor is considerably played down. The result is a lightweight cult creation that, although lacking in ferocity, still comes across thanks to good acting and a real sense of helpless fear in key scenes. Pattie Brooks sings a very catchy number called "Fly Away" in the opening disco scene. Not bad at all.

"Fifth Floor" was actually better than I had expected. What makes it rise above the other, run of the mill B-movies/television movie of the week is the good performances from lead actress, Diane Hull and the supporting cast including Sharon Farrell and Bo Hopkins as an orderly who abuses his authority and terrorizes the young heroine.

Following a young college co-ed disco dancer who is inexplicably poisoned by strychnine in her drink is determined to be a suicide risk and delegated to the titular "fifth floor" psychiatric ward of a hospital for observation for 72 hours. Of course, a lecherous orderly makes things difficult for Kelly and her stay ends up being prolonged and not even her fiancee believes her cries for help. Diane Hull who played Kelly, manages to convey vulnerability and strength at the same time. The only people she can trust are the fellow patients on the ward who help her with a couple of escape attempts. The supporting cast is a who's who of character actors including a younger Robert Englund a.k.a. "Freddy Krueger" as one of the patients. One stand out performance is Sharon Farrell as Melanie, a truly broken woman who may have been made worse by her stay on the fifth floor and trapped there. Looking like Farrah Fawcett, she definitely conveyed the manic madness and becomes an unlikely ally of Kelly. Bo Hopkins, as the abusive orderly, is chilling and disturbing as the villain. The movie was made in the late 1970s and this is very noticeable with the CHIPS like background music and 3 disco dance numbers. Although a bit contrived at moments and an ending that ends abruptly, the film held it's own on it's B-Movie budget and I would go as far as to say that I liked it better than the similarly themed, "Girl Interrupted" which also was based on a true story. Nothing more is made of the true story that this film was based on or when it happened. I have heard of a similar film about an undercover reporter who poses as a mental patient and this is only known to one psychiatrist who unfortunately dies and every time the reporter attempts to tell the staff they give him more tranquilizers. It seems unlikely that this could happen but at the same time it is plausible under certain extreme circumstances where people are going to assume that you are paranoid. Very scary thought indeed.

Its obvious that some big wigs, or maybe small wigs, decided that because One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest was popular and that Disco was still flapping its huge collars and flares on the dancefloor, combining the two would be a hit. Well it wasn't.

I saw that because this only ended up on my radar after watching old Siskel and Ebert reviews, watching old trailers and somehow this entered my consciousness. The next day it pops up on Talking Pictures TV, so it would have been rude not to... The story is about a disco dancing student who ends up ingesting some drug which ends up with her being sectioned. The rest of the movie is her trying to prove her sanity, while being abused by various members of staff. This is many peoples idea of hell. And what I can tell you is that this is based on fact. A bunch of psychologists decided to do an experiment by pretending to be crazy in order to get sectioned. They were and nobody believed their stories about being psychologists. You can look this up.

So with a solid premise and with psychiatric input to the film, its strange that "the crazies" act pretty normal. I suppose real looking mental health patients aren't for show. What is surprising is the quality of the cast. There are so many faces that went on to be so well known in the following decade its a wonder this isn't more widely known.

The film does work in terms of engagement however and the story is well paced and executed. It obviously has some similarities to women in prison movies, but it doesn't really have the same sleaze or nudity. It is basically a disco-melodrama version of Cuckoos nest, without the same emotional punch. Although it does have a satisfying conclusion.

The lovely and appealing Dianne Hull ("Aloha, Bobby and Rose") plays Kelly McIntyre, a college student and disco dancer who suffers seizures on the dance floor one night. It turns out that she's been the victim of strychnine poisoning, but too many authority figures think she's delusional and suicidal, prompting them to place her in the psychiatric ward - the fifth floor of the tile - of the hospital. She has a very hard time convincing people that she's quite sane, and avoiding the lecherous paws of ultra-creepy orderly Carl (Bo Hopkins, "The Wild Bunch").

This is a reasonably entertaining exploitation-drama, somewhat forgotten over time, that should be of interest to fans of the genre. Purporting to be "based on" a true story, it's got an effectively sordid premise, complete with some nastiness and nudity along the way. It takes Kelly's tale seriously, allowing us to build sufficient sympathy for her as well as for some of her fellow inmates. It does have some genuine pathos going for it; Patti D'Arbanville plays a pregnant inmate named Cathy afraid of having her baby taken away, and Sharon Farrell (in a standout performance) is the frail and vulnerable Melanie; ones' heart just goes out to this poor, messed-up woman.

The film does a great job of really having you hate the Carl character. This is one of Hopkins' best roles and performances, and you keep waiting for this person to get some sort of comeuppance. Other roadblocks in Kelly's way include an administrator (guest star Mel Ferrer) and a head nurse (Julie Adams), who tend to dismiss Kelly and her plight.

The quirky characters are a highlight, enacted by a variety of familiar faces: Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund (his entrance has him pretending to be a doctor), Anthony James (the antagonist in director Howard Avedis' "The Teacher") as the hostile Derrick, Earl Boen ("The Terminator") as the nerdy Phil, and Alice "Large Marge" Nunn as Emma. Pay close attention and you'll spot Michael Berryman ("The Hills Have Eyes" '77) as another inmate; however, Tracey Walter ("Repo Man") is harder to spot. Director Avedis and his actress wife Marlene Schmidt, who came up with the screen story, have small roles in the film.

Overall, this is engaging trash, that is more vivid than one might see in a TV movie treatment of such material.

Seven out of 10.

THE FIFTH FLOOR opens at the Demons Disco Club, where Kelly McIntyre (Dianne Hull) arrives to join in on whatever disco dance craze is taking place at the moment. One must say that she certainly has the moves!

Uh oh!

Something goes horribly awry, causing Kelly to convulse violently on the floor, as if she's being tortured with cattle prods! Is this just her attempt at some daring new dance routine? The next thing she knows, Kelly's trapped in the nuthouse, being examined by Dr. Freddy Krueger! The rest is a nightmare for poor Kelly, who only wants to be free to boogie once more. Nothing can prepare you for the zany "group therapy" session!

If you've been searching for a movie that captures the rigors of disco, combined with the obligatory torment of the Women In Prison sub-genre, that is set in a mental hospital, then search no more! Ms. Hull's lethargic, near-dead performance is perfectly realized, and her fretting is unparalleled.

SPECIAL MENTION: For Bo Hopkins, who plays the sleazy orderly known as Carl with all the Carl-ness that anyone could possibly muster. No one chews gum or smokes cigarettes like Bo! No one!...