FAQ

The residents of Beaver Mills, a small town in northern Alaska, find themselves under attack by a wyvern, thawed from the Arctic icecaps thanks to global warming.

Wyvern is an original TV movie written for the SyFy channel by Jason Bourque as part of their Maneater film series.

No. Wyvern is neither a tribute, a sequel, nor a parody of the TV series Northern Exposure (1990) (1990-1995), although the similarities and connections are unmistakable. Two of the main characters, backwoods redneck Haas and Deputy Susie, are played respectively by Northern Exposure veterans Barry Corbin, who played Maurice Minnifield, and Elaine Miles, who played Marilyn Whirlwind. Beyond that, the connections are fetching, e.g., there is New York Doctor David Yates (David James Lewis) (reminiscent of Dr Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow)), ice trucker Jake Buttner (Nick Chinlund) who lives in a trailer (similar to Chris Stevens (John Corbett)), and one of the elderly residents has a deceased friend named Maggie. Beaver Mills has a radio station, KYOF (remember KBER?). The town has a totem pole reminiscent of the totem in Cicely. Even the moose makes an appearance, although in a slightly altered way.

A wyvern is a mythical flying reptilian dragon, akin to a serpent with a barbed tail. Several origins for the wyvern, aka wivern, have been presented, but the film makes up its own mythology. According to Haas, the Wyvern is an ancient beast from Norwegian mythology, son of Hel, the goddess of death. The wyvern went on a rampage and bit Odin, so he imprisoned it in ice far to the north.

When the survivors find out that the wyvern has three eggs in its nest, Jake, Claire (Erin Karpluk), Hampton (Tinsel Korey), and the Colonel (Don S. Davis) steal one of the eggs and load it into the back of a pickup. On the way back to town, they find an abandoned 10-wheeler cab, and Jake discovers that it's his replacement truck. They strap the egg to the cab, and Jake drives off alone. About two miles from his GPS destination, the wyvern catches up with him and begins to attack the rig, but Jake keeps on trucking until he reaches his destination—a high cliff. At the last minute, he jumps out of the cab. It drives itself over the cliff, wyvern and all, falls on the wyvern and explodes, killing it. In the final scene, Jake returns to the Beaver Pelt Cafe and is welcomed back.

Wyvern has most frequently been compared to Tremors (1990) (1990), in which residents of a small desert town in Nevada are being picked off by huge wormlike creatures that live underground. Other movies in which residents are forced to band together to defeat monsters outside their doors include The Mist (2007) (2007), in which residents holed up in a grocery store must defeat monsters that have come through an interdimensional rift, and 30 Days of Night (2007) (2007), in which a group of vampires invade another small town in northern Alaska.