Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Let me set the record straight, on this one. This is in no way, a bit movie, where I don't want illicit substances, other reviewers on, but this none other a fine solid, absorbing drama, based supposedly on a real incident, where a woman supposedly picked up the wrong drink, where a jilted boyfriend, had spiked it with Strickinine (and don't go off at me, for spelling it wrong) so our pretty lass Hull, ends up in a psyche ward, on the fifth floor, or as one crazy puts, Psycho city, where her introduction, is pure gold. The movie is a lot of fun, I found, with some real cooks, played by good supports, one being Robert Englund, before he put on that decapitating monster mask, and those ripping claws. We really see the depressing realities of daily life, inside this place, and we really sympathize with Hull's helplessness, her ordeal, only heightened, by a male orderly, and sexual deviate, Hopkins, who takes advantage of our pretty philies, even chance he gets, really creating a nasty piece of work, with a love to hate performance, the bath scene implanted in my memory, from my first watch of 1985. Julie Adams, was good too, as a matron, as was Mel Ferrer, strong as the chief doc, and as a memorable performance crazy, suicide victim, D'Arbanville left a lasting impression, while another actor you'll recognize, where there's a great irony involved here, where this time as a patient, he's on the other side of the door. This is a very involving and I'll say it again, absorbing, little nifty film, another of these well made seventies movie's that warrants viewing, with stars we don't see now. Forget the bad hype. Please.

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.

A woman (Dianne Hull) is poisoned with strychnine while disco dancing (now THAT might have been an effective way to stop disco). Everyone (including her clueless boyfriend) takes her poisoning to be a suicide attempt and she ends up involuntarily committed to a co-ed mental institution where there is a lot of melodrama, but really little that goes beyond a typical 70's TV movie of the week. Her main antagonist is a corrupt male orderly (Bo Hopkins) who pressures her for sex. Her fellow inmates, meanwhile, include a young Robert England and an (apparently genuinely) pregnant Patti D'Arbanville.A lot of stuff in this movie seems rather preposterous today, but back in the 70's perhaps not so much. This movie kind of reminded me of the the contemporary theatrical film "Human Experiments" and the TV movie "Nightmare in Badham County". Dianne Hull was one of those very cute 70's actresses who appeared in a few things and then pretty much vanished into oblivion. This is perhaps her most memorable role aside from "Girls on the Road" (where she'd played a hitch-hiking teenager who almost has sex with "Papa Walton"). Her full-frontal nude scenes are about the only thing that separate this from a tame TV movie, but she does give a pretty good performance. And it's always fun to watch Bo Hopkins play a redneck villain even if he's not quite as memorable as he is in "White Lightning" and .This is probably not a movie that's going to make a deep impression on anybody, but it's entertaining enough I guess.

I caught this in 1980 as part of a double bill at a theatre. The other film was the sick "Don't Go In The House". This was only a little better but that's very faint praise.Supposedly based on a true story (I have my doubts) this is about a college girl who is wrongly sent to an insane asylum by a vengeful boyfriend. OK--just the basic premise is silly. Really--a BOYFRIEND has his girlfriend committed???? Where's her family? On what charges? So--right off the bat--it doesn't make sense. In the asylum we meet the yawningly familiar type of lovable psychos. We also meet the nasty orderly--he's played by Bo Hopkins so you KNOW he's evil. The film is filled with the regular pointless female nudity, a dull plot and pretty terrible acting. Only Hopkins (who is obviously having fun) even tries to give a good performance. For his acting alone I give this a 2. Otherwise it's pretty run of the mill and dreary.