What are we watching?
A 2009 Canadian-American TV movie called Wyvern.
Which channel is it on?
Legend (Sky Channel 148).
What’s going on?
A glance at the Sky Guide reveals that global warming has led to a prehistoric dragon being released from the ice. And to make matters worse, the beast has chosen a remote Alaskan town as its feeding ground. We arrive 40 minutes in as a character called the Colonel informs us: ‘It’s Roswell happening all over again. And they look like reptilians. A huge mother of them flew right over my vehicle.’ How appropriate that a Colonel should explain everything in a nutshell. No creature feature worth its salt would be complete without a doomsayer and Wyvern is blessed with two. The first is a woman who’s so fatalistic she makes Private Fraser from Dad’s Army look like an NFL cheerleader. ‘That thing’s a beast,’ she says. ‘Right out of Revelations. We’re all doomed. It’s the end of days.’ The second merchant of disaster is a grizzled old-timer who recounts a tale from Norse mythology about the wyvern – a monster that’s sent to eliminate evil men from the world when the polar ice caps melt. ‘How do you know all this?’ someone asks him. He replies authoritatively: ‘My father was from Norway.’ This all feels like very arbitrary reasoning; if there was someone of Japanese parentage in the scene, presumably Godzilla would have got the blame for everything.
What’s the creature like?
We’re in luck because we’ve only been watching for a few minutes when the wyvern swoops in and attacks the town. As dragons go, it’s less Drogon from Game Of Thrones and more the Soup Dragon from The Clangers. But given the limited budget, the CGI is a step up from Doctor Who. Doctor Who circa 1982, that is. To disguise its limitations, we mostly glimpse the dragon through a window. Given how considerable those limitations are, it might have been been a better idea to keep the window’s curtains fully closed. The ropey winged assailant claims a couple of lives, but is thwarted when the rest of the townsfolk take shelter in a wooden building. It seems breathing fire isn’t part of the Wyvern’s skill set.
What happens next?
We cut to a couple of characters called Jake and Clare, who are driving out of town to find the local lawman, Chief Dawson. Jake tells Clare: ‘You know, being a trucker my whole life, I’ve seen a lot of wisdom on the road. And some of it might apply right here.’ Clare is all ears, clearly hoping that Jake’s wide and varied life experiences can make sense of this insane situation: ‘Yeah? What’s that?’ she asks. ‘Stuff happens,’ he says.
Next we see Chief Dawson, the object of their search, who’s travelling along a tree-lined road when he spots a crashed vehicle ahead. It’s a camper van and the passengers have apparently fallen prey to the dragon. Helpless human beings have been attacked by a gigantic, powerful monster that’s capable of tearing them from limb to limb and tossing aside their ravaged torsos like they were nothing. It should be a scene of carnage. It should be a bloodbath. Unfortunately, it just looks like someone got a bit messy with a ketchup challenge on Taskmaster.
Was it an enjoyable watch?
For all its faults, Wyvern did pack a lot of incident into half an hour’s viewing. It may have been laughable at times, but it was never boring. As Jake said, stuff happened. The dodgy effects are understandable given the film’s meagre budget, but the absence of a half-decent script is less excusable.
Will we watch the rest of the film?
Not before the polar ice caps freeze over again.
(Sofa Cushion Roulette selections are decided by a complex algorithm that employs aspects of William Burroughs’ cut-up technique, Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards, Luke Reinhart’s The Dice Man, tossing a coin and Tellyology’s springer spaniel spirit guide Jemimah)
