The Fifth Floor (1978)

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Institutionalized against her will.

Kelly (Dianne Hull) is a young adult just starting out by working at a local disco bar while trying to save up enough money to go to college. While at the disco she sips a drink that was meant for somebody else and in the process ends up going into seizures. After she gets rushed to the hospital it is found that the drink had been laced with strychnine, but the doctors feel she took the drink knowing it was poisoned in an attempt to kill herself, so she is directed to spend 72 hours at the hospital’s psyche ward, which is on the fifth floor. It is there that she can be monitored by the trained staff to make sure she will not try to kill herself again. Unfortunately one of the orderly’s who works there, Carl (Bo Hopkins), takes a sexual interest in Kelly and uses his authority to try and force her into compromising situations.

The film starts out okay, which is mainly due to Hull’s performance, who is able to create enough of a three-dimensional character that you see her as a real person and care about her fate. Although she has not been in anything since 1991 and has since then spent her time working as an acting coach, she did do a lot of good performances in other films during the 70’s including her work in Aloha Bobby and Rose, so it’s no surprise that her presence here would help lift up the material. I was particularly impressed with the seizures she goes through on the disco floor, which looked quite genuine, and the way she allowed herself to be put in some very vulnerable scenes that would be hard for other performers to do including where she is naked while her captor isn’t and who then proceeds to carry her around.

Unfortunately once things pivot over to the psych ward it goes downhill completely. Instead of raising the tensions it just gets boring. Sharon Farrell gives a strong performance as one of the other patients, in fact it is her image on the film’s promotional poster seen above and not Hull’s even though Hull was technically the star, but the rest of the people stuck there seem too normal and too nice. It becomes almost like Hull finding a new clique of friends. She actually comes off more frazzled when she’s on the outside then when she’s actually at the hospital where for the most part she bonds well with the other patients. I also thought it was ridiculous that these patients were allowed to go to a zoo and able to mingle with the public with only light supervision. If these people are deemed so ‘dangerous’ that they must be institutionalized then I would think they shouldn’t be allowed out into the public at all.

The film’s biggest failing though is that it acts like what we see here is provocative and shocking when it really isn’t. Too many other films have been done involving the same dark side of insane asylums that what happens here adds nothing new to the discussion. In fact it ends being quite predictable and cliched instead.

The only redeeming aspect is Hopkins who is quite effective. Every time you seem him you cringe, but not so much because he overplays it, but instead by doing the exact opposite. He’s more just your rural hayseed looking too take advantage of the situation to satisfy his basic carnal instincts behaving more like a typical thug you could bump into anywhere than an over-the-top psycho, which is why it works. You feel like there’s probably a lot more just like him out there, some even working in ‘respectable’ positions, who are just waiting to exploit the situation the minute nobody is looking, which in the end is the one true horror you get from the film that actually succeeds.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: November 15, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Howard Avedis

Studio: Film Ventures International

Available: YouTube