The Fifth Floor

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.

Although this was made in 1978, I recall seeing this with Don't Go In The House in 1980 at the drive-in theatre. Oddly enough I was attending psychiatric technician training at the time. Bo Hopkins after introducing himself to the unfortunate disco heroine as 'your friendly psychiatric technician' goes on to deliver a good performance with convincing menace beneath a superficial cheery 'therapeutic' demeanor. Sharon Farrell is convincing as a patient. The always creepy Anthony James gives one of his best performances and, horror fans, Robert 'Freddie' Englund is also on hand as a patient. Toss in some disco and you got some kind of late 70's semi-classic drive-in entertainment.If nothing else, watching Bo Hopkins puffing on a cigarette as he worked reminded me of 1980, when it was commonplace to see staff and patients smoking on a unit. Note too, that Bo appears to be working AM, PM (Swing) and Noc shift in this movie. No doubt racking up some good OT money but perhaps driving himself to some of the behaviors he displays. (For me) nostalgic fun ** out of *****

The Fifth Floor is an engaging piece of work that was much better than I expected. Using a tag line like "From the disco floor to the insane asylum" is asking for trouble but the film deserves better than that.

Dianne Hull plays Kelly, a friendly girl who works at a disco club (not sure what as!), who has a sudden seizure one night while dancing and is rushed to hospital. When it is found that she has strychnine poisoning, Kelly claims that she has been poisoned, but alas for her, no-one believes her and she is sent to a psychiatrist as a possible suicide, which, due to a few more misunderstandings, leads her to being incarcerated on the "Fifth Floor", which is a special secure ward for the insane. Can she establish her sanity and get out of the place and back to normality? What I liked about the film is that it plays the scenario of Kelly's plight out quite seriously. The more she complains, accuses the staff of lying and refuses to take treatment ( a very good performance here by Dianne Hull), the more deeply she gets herself trapped. While watching you find yourself thinking: "Yes I guess that's exactly what a mad person would do and say as well", and her plight struck me as all too believable. The biggest spanner in the works for poor Kelly is a corrupt and lascivious orderly called Carl (effectlively played by Bo Hopkins) who likes to sexually assault the younger female inmates and then blame their later accusations on hysteria. He takes a shine to Kelly and the two scenes in which he abuses her are quite unpleasant. Thrown into this are some good minor performances by the other inmates that Kelly befriends, including a pregnant girl called Cathy and a seriously unhappy and troubled woman named Melanie, played with genuine feeling and impressive intensity by Sharon Farrell.

So, although the plot is nothing new (sane person committed to an asylum by mistake), the film does a good job of handling it. Although the situation is kept small scale, you can certainly feel for the central character, and with great performances all round and a couple of rather surprisingly brutal scenes, it all goes towards making "The Fifth Floor" a place you really should visit.

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.