Movie Identification - 1990s VHS Sci-Fi/Horror

Question

Okay, this is a hard one as I don't remember very much, and can't figure out what to Google, but here goes. This is one of those 1990 straight to VHS type movies (probably) with decent production value.

From what I remember, a family moves to a dangerous, hot environment where you would be burned outside in the day in a short period of time. The father is possibly a scientist, and is working with plants (maybe reptiles) in the family's basement. The boy becomes affected by his father's work and is an outcast at school. One scene involved him being left outside to burn tied to a post, where he survived due to his affliction. His dad may form into a planet like creature in the end, or the planet is eating his family..possibly.

This may be all in my head, but I am pretty sure it was a movie.

Answer 1

I think you are looking for the movie Habitat:

In a future where the Earth's ozone layer is severely decreased in size, the Symes family is on the run from the father's former employers and the government. Hank Symes (Tchéky Karyo) a molecular biologist, has become so obsessed with saving the world that he has placed his entire family's lives in danger. They stop in a desert community to hide out and continue work when a terrible accident occurs that transforms Hank into a fantastic ethereal lifeform and begins changing the house into a huge botanical biosphere entity which has the ability to threaten all who enter.

Their son Andreas (Balthazar Getty), however, is experiencing things from a teenager's point of view and doesn't know how he will be able to attend the local school, let alone fit in with any of the local kids as they all see him as some weirdo that just wandered into town. No matter what Andreas feels, his father is still around him, changing things for him and others and eventually even Andreas will come to see that in this strange time he is living that miracles still can happen.