Space Master X-7 (1958)

I saw this movie only one time... in 1958, when I was seven years old.I still remember it to this day which is a good indicator of the impact that this movie left on me. The image that stands out in my mind is that of the Blood Rust virus. I can still see it in my mind after nearly fifty years. I can still recall the pulse of urgency that ran throughout the movie. In all the years that have passed since I saw this film, I have only run into one person who even recalled it. I was beginning to think that I had imagined its existence.After reading the review on IMDb, I can only assume that I saw it the same day that I saw "The Fly" in a theater on Solano Avenue in Berkeley, California. (In the 1950's, kids could see two movies and a bunch of cartoons on a Saturday afternoon for a quarter.)If there is a copy of this movie available on DVD or VHS, I would surely love to purchase one.

As a 12 year old, this was the most mind blowing movie of my childhood. Much more scary than the "A" movie, The Fly (great movie), released with it. I would always think that the mold would get into the house and eat me away (something like Necrotizing Fasciitis). Even though this movie is in B&W, the movie, for me, was much scarier than the BLOB. This is one of the two most psyche scaring movies of my childhood...the other being GOG. Honorable mention for this segment would go to the Crawling Eye, Invasion of the Saucermen, and War of the Satellites. My dad was a sci-fi nut as much as me and the two of us would see every new release as soon as they came out. These movies are very much part of my upbringing/childhood. I would love to get a copy of Blood Rust/SpaceMaster X7.

I saw this movie in a drive-in when I was less than ten years old, and for the last forty years, I have been more concerned about the destruction of mankind than about the deaths of just a few people. The special effects and dialog might be old, but the plot is something that could actually happen. It still scares me now. I would pay to see it in a theater if it were showing. I used to think that I liked this movie so much because I grew up loving science fiction. Now I realize that it's movies like this one that made me love science fiction. It isn't some silly fantasy about unicorns and elves. It's a realistic story of science and scientists, and their importance as the only ones who can save us all. It made me want to grow up to be a scientist while my friends all wanted to be doctors and lawyers. For me, it was a life-altering movie.

When I was kid, I used to sometimes see stills or brief mentions of this film in science fiction movie books or in the pages of "monster" magazines. But for some strange reason this film never turned up on TV, even though other science fiction offerings made by Fox from the same period often did. No one I knew had seen it except for older people who saw it when it was first released in 1958 to theaters. Having seen it recently on video, I can tell you that SPACE MASTER X 7 is no "lost" classic, but its a not bad low budget drive in feature with a slightly unusual menace and director Edward Byrnes deserves credit for trying hard to make a serious (sometimes he tries to hard) adult science fiction thriller. Done in a semi-documentary style, Byrnes sometimes slows down the films pace but overall its not a bad job.One area of interest to film buffs is the films casting. We have Paul ("man of a thousands voices") Frees in a surprisingly large on screen role as a "heel" scientist who accidently unleashes the "blood rust". Of course the person often mentioned in this film is Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, in a rare character part as a cab driver who helps the feds track down a woman who was exposed to the deadly alien fungus. This film was made when the stooges career was in limbo; between the time Columbia dropped the stooges because it was no longer interested in making shorts, and the time before they boys returned to the screen for feature films. Director Byrnes began his film career directing 3 Stooges shorts, and was good friends with the boys, so it was he who probably got Moe a part in the picture.