cultfilmfreaksdotcom When Dianne Hull's otherwise energetic and sexy college student/disco queen Kelly wakes up in a mental ward (like Dorothy back in Kansas), surrounded by onlooking patients with endearingly unique personality traits, you'll think this was a heartfelt made-for-TV movie. That's until the full frontal nudity occurs within that fifth floor, a mental ward that isn't such a bad place after all.Except for Bo Hopkins as Carl, who seems like a nice enough attendant but he's dead-set after Kelly's body. He's already raped another inmate, that being scene-stealer and poster girl Shannon Farrell as Melanie. With shaggy dirty-blond hair and an eclectic range of emotions, she's the person most effected by what our main character Kelly should be more effected by: being stuck in a blue-walled purgatory that offers random electroshock therapy like peanuts at a ball game.Kelly, falsely accused of attempting suicide, had been intentionally poisoned. There doesn't seem to be any way out of the ward except one successful escape that doesn't last very long since Kelly's boyfriend (John David Carson) is in cahoots with the friendly head doctor (Mel Ferrer). Meanwhile strict nurse Julie Adams has real Nurse Ratched potential but turns out sweet and friendly, making Bo the sole antagonist.With frightfully promising taglines like "Once the door closes here, it never opens" or "The Nightmare is knowing You're Sane," it's much too cozy a cuckoo's nest for our sexy and vulnerable ingénue, who winds up teaching the patients how to disco dance and assert themselves... That is, except for Sharon Farrell's emotionally-scarred Melanie, stubbornly remaining the only worthy example of (what could have/should have been a much edgier version of a) character-driven 1970's exploitation that, despite the flaws and missed opportunities, is still somewhat intriguing. Other inmates including Patti D'Arbanville (BIG Wednesday), Robert Englund (the original Freddie Kruger), Anthony James (who starred in THE TEACHER also directed by Howard Avedis), and Earl Boen (the doubting Thomas of the TERMINATOR franchise) add little to the overall melodrama but it's a nice bouquet of character-actors nonetheless.

adriangr 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.

gjung01 "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.

dtucker86 I saw this film as a kid and I remember the advertisments for it on tv made it look like it would be as scary as The Shining. It really isn't scary at all. The actors do a fine job, Dianne Hull (whatever happened to her?) makes a nice damsel in distress. Its funny seeing Robert Englund before he played Freddy Kruger. A young disco dancer is mistakingly committed to an asylum after someone drugs her. It makes you think because there really have been a lot of cases like this. I don't remember what happened in the end, but I don't think it had a happy ending.