space the spooky frontierAstronaut test pilot Lt. Dan Prescott (Bill Edwards) is scheduled to test the new Y-13 rocket much to his brother’s, Cmdr. Charles “Chuck” Prescott (Marshall Thompson), chagrin. Dan doesn’t follow Chuck’s orders and flies to high, blacking out and then crashes into the desert. Instead of going back to base Dan goes find his girlfriend Tia (Marla Landi). Chuch finds Dan, yells at him and sends him back to base.

Chuck doesn’t want Dan to fly the next test but everyone else still think Dan is the best pilot for the job. On the next test flight Dan again goes higher than ever before, climbing to 1,320,000 feet before trying to return the rocket to Earth.

first-man-into-spaceA part of Y-13 is then reported to be found in a farmers field. Police Chief Wilson (Bill Nagy) informs Chuck and the two of them go investigate. The cockpit of the Y-13 is covered in a mysterious rock coating and Dan is no where to be found.

Some cattle are killed and drained of blood and nurse at a blood bank is killed and blood taken. At the scene of where the cattle were killed a piece of Dan’s space suit is found, encrusted with the strange substance. The substance is tested by Dr. Von Essen (Carl Jaffe) who discovers that the substance coating the Y13 serves as a protective coating that is both extremely flexible and impervious to most other substances. The material also has the unusual ability to merge with whatever it covers and create a totally new substance.

Chuck realizes that this is what has happened to Dan. He was coated with the stuff which has transformed him, coating him but starving him of oxygen which is why he’s seeking out blood. Three more killings occur and everyone tries to find Dan. Dan eventual shows up at base and Chuck and Von Essen lure him to the pressure chamber to try and save Dan.

Hammer’s excellent adaptation of The Quatermass Xperiment greatly influenced this film. The plot is extremely similar and The Quatermass Xperiment is the better film but I have already written about it in last year’s 31 Days of Horror. Director Robert Day had previously made The Haunted Strangler and Corridors of Blood, both good horror films before he made this one. First Man Into Space isn’t bad, it is pretty entertaining it’s too similar to The Quatermass Xperiment.