A quick moving film about what happens when we aren't careful with potentially deadly, unknown substances. Here, an arrogant scientist is acting on his own and unleashes a kind of plant/creature that devours everything in its path. After an encounter with his ex he is eaten by the thing. Forces move in and burn the creature but it has contaminated other objects and may be carried by the ex-wife. Much of the movie involves hunting down this woman who thinks she is suspected of murder. I have to admit that the interrogation of different women on a plane aren't done very well. Perhaps the first thing you do is lay it on the line. There is good suspense at the end and it leaves one with a little something in the pit of the stomach. Good 1950's stuff.

Space fungus menaces planet earth. Okay, everything else was menacing the besieged 1950's planet, so why not a creepy fungus. Well, it's actually a bloody slime from outer space that spreads like a dirty carpet, and unless trackers can catch up with the shapely blonde Typhoid Mary (Thomas) carrying it, we're all one big toadstool. I'm trying hard, but I just don't recall this epic from 1958, and I rarely missed one of these drive-in specials. According to IMDb, TCF didn't syndicate the film, which is why, I guess, it's gone unseen for 50 years.Actually, the movie's pretty well produced for its kind. The location shots lend at least some credibility to the wacky plot. And catch those early versions of protective Hazmat suits in the train yard scene. Williams and Ellis do well as the bloodhounds, but why Ellis remains a lowly Pfc with his officer-level credentials seems odd. Also, I really like the unheralded Lyn Thomas as the nervous blonde. Note that brilliant screenwriter Dan Mainwaring, e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Out of the Past (1947), collaborated on the screenplay. I'm guessing that promising trapped-in-the-airliner concept came from him. Too bad the full potential of those scenes is not realized by director Bernds. At the same time, the movie ends all-too-abruptly, as though the production suddenly ran out of money. I get the feeling that with better backing and a more perceptive director, this drive-in programmer could have turned into an uptown smash on the order of Alien (1980).

I just finished watching this on 'Fox Movie Channel'. I have no idea when it might be on again, but it is now in rotation! And as everyone else said, it was the most terrifying movie when I saw it with 'The Fly' at age 9, but now it seems a bit different :). I remember the plane sequence where the bloodrust propagates throughout the plane as being a lot longer. Anyway, I do think it was fairly well written, and the narrative style helped make it more terrifying at the time.I also agree that The Fly was not as scary, but the scene where the fly calls out 'help me' was extremely 'memorable' as well.The ending in 'Spacemaster' did seem to come too soon, the movie seemed to go by quickly so, to me, that's a sign that it was well written and did not drag by.

As a child I spent the summers with my grandparents in northern New Jersey. In the summer of 1959 the parents of a friend of mine were taking him to see a movie at a drive-in and I was invited,which movie didn't matter to me, just a chance to see a movie was great. The movie was Space Master X-7 and as child of 11 it scared the heck out of me (my mental film vault still has a has a clip of the scientist being absorbed by the fungus). That was the 1950's, cold war, Castro and all, traveling to outerspace was still a dream. A child of 11 today would find the movie laughable and the effects lame, but in the dark of a summer night in 1959 the movie had its effect.