Containing a number of effective sequences, HABITAT has the imagination and conviction to stand apart as an ecological thriller. The film made its debut on the film festival circuit and was subsequently shown on the Sci-Fi Channel; a video release followed soon after.
In the future, the ozone layer has been destroyed, forcing people to shun the sun. Scientist Hank Symes (Tcheky Karyo), on the run from prosecution for his unorthodox biological experiments, moves his wife, Clarissa (Alice Krige), and son, Andreas (Balthazar Getty), to the town of Pleasanton.
While Hank is setting up his new basement lab, an accident transforms him into a being composed of spores that can separate and recombine. The whole house becomes overgrown with living vegetation, and Clarissa falls under its thrall. Meanwhile, Andreas becomes attracted to schoolmate Deborah
Marlowe (Lara Harris), arousing the ire of her gym coach father (Kenneth Welsh) and her would-be boyfriend Blaine (Brad Austin). Blaine and his friends leave Andreas tied up outside, but the sun's rays don't harm him.
Andreas confronts his mother, who reveals that he is the result of Hank's experiments to allow humans to survive in the changed environment. Andreas runs off with Deborah, but she gets burned in the sunlight. After a visit to the Symes house causes Coach Marlowe to have a violent physical
reaction, he calls the Center for Disease Control, which puts the place under quarantine shortly before Andreas and Deborah return. The house's living plantlife kills the invading CDC agents; Hank turns Clarissa into a being like himself and heals Deborah. As the transformed Clarissa and Hank take
to the winds, Andreas and Deborah face the future together.
HABITAT marked a return to the B-movie scene for writer/director Rene Daalder, 20 years after his cult teen-revenge film MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH (1976). Given the social/satirical overtones Daalder brought to that project, it's disappointing that he plays the high-school conflicts here with an
overwrought straight face, but it's also clear that his true interests lie elsewhere in HABITAT. His vision of Earth's ecological future, and the way the Symes house becomes the spearhead of a new kind of evolution, are intriguing and creative enough to make the movie entertaining. Some of the
scenes are genuinely creepy, while others are just silly; fortunately, Daalder does inject bent, intentional humor into the proceedings, as when Coach Marlowe has the mother of all allergic reactions to the Symes house, or in dialogue like "Our food doesn't have a shelf life, it just lives on the
shelf."
The first feature shot on high-definition digital video, HABITAT has an effectively sun-blasted look in its exteriors. While some of the "exterior" locations are obviously sets, the scenes inside the Symes house are (literally) dripping with atmosphere, and the computer-generated effects that turn
Karyo into a flying swarm of spores are excellent. It helps that Getty is able to play his scenes opposite the digitized Karyo with a completely straight face; even more impressive is Krige's note-perfect, highly amusing performance as the blissed-out Clarissa. (Violence, extensive nudity, sexual
situations, extreme profanity.) leave a comment
