A .gif of Laura Harris topless in Habitat (1997)

Hilariously bad movie, but she looked good.

She kinda left the public eye for a few years there, but IMDb says she appeared in two projects in 2021.

My thoughts on the movie follow the jump, if you care to see them



What a wonderful treat it was to watch this movie. As you know, I love bad movies and this one is truly bad. Not brain-dead bad like Last Days of Disco or 200 Cigarettes, but fun bad, so bad you can’t believe they were serious, like Plan 9 From Outer Space.

I loved every minute of this thing, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The acting can’t be believed, the art direction and f/x are atrocious, the plot makes no sense, every character is a cliche, there is no continuity, they made up their own science when they needed it for the plot, the music sucks, and the dialogue is about as bad as any movie ever written. Even the credits are bad, because they are bright green against a bright orange desert landscape.

In other words, this movie is great!

It takes place in the future, after the ecological disaster, in a time when humans can no longer go out into the sunlight. Balthazar “I’m Not Charlie Sheen” Getty plays a mutated human, the only person on earth who can go outside safely, although he guards this secret from most people.

He has quite an unusual family. His mom is a hippie space cadet with a Ph.D. in microbiology, and his father is a house.

I did not make that up.

His dad was a genius scientist who determined a way to accelerate evolution a billion years, and now exists only as disembodied atoms. He has become one with nature, and has joined his own atoms with the atoms in the house to create a living habitat for his family, safe from the ecological disaster outside.

You think the kids made fun of you because your dad had an accent? Imagine what they would have said if your dad was a suburban 3/2 without one single good walk-in closet.

I suppose Balty’s mutation is no surprise, given that he is the offspring of an eternally stoned woman and a split level ranch house.

The antagonist in the plot is the local phys ed teacher, a bully and a fundamentalist Christian fanatic who finds it difficult to relate to a kid whose mom is a half-naked stoned hippie and whose dad has shingles and a porch. He and the local youth bullies decide to kick the crap out of Balty and tie him out in the sun to die. They were, of course, unaware of his mutant powers. When Balty returns from the ordeal with no ill effects and a nice tan, the phys ed teacher then assumes that it must be the work of Satan.

Balty finally defeats his enemies with the aid of his once-pacifist friend and his dad. The meek friend decides that he has finally taken enough crap, abandons pacificism, and bops the head bully with a log. Meanwhile, Balty’s dad defeats and kills a bunch of people who are trying to destroy him, including the coach. Dad then figures out a way to give the magical sun-immune powers to the girl Balty likes, whereupon she decides that she and Balty will “wander the earth” together. She doesn’t seem too upset by the fact that Balty’s friends and family have just killed her dad (the coach) and her boyfriend (the bully).

Then Balty’s dad figures out a way to turn Balty’s mom into pure energy, and together they float off into the ionosphere. Balty and his girl look up to the heavens and wave, and the girlfriend says “bye.” This really cracked me up more than anything else in the movie. “Bye, disembodied atoms, I’m really gonna miss you, even though we’ve never actually met, and you don’t actually have any ears to hear me or eyes to see my wave.”

Great, great movie. I don’t know if any of you like to toke it up once in a while, and I certainly would not advise you to engage in any illegal activities, but if you do like to fire up an occasional doob, I strongly suggest you rent this before your next one. You can’t go wrong, unless you can die from giggling.

One thought on “A .gif of Laura Harris topless in Habitat (1997)

  1. How could you forget her near full frontal in The Faculty which also featured Jon Stewart?

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