MFF Special: Tracking the Merman’s Murderous Journey in The Cabin in the Woods

Why did the control center have to be so far away!

Do you ever wonder how long it took the Merman to travel from the elevators to the control room in The Cabin in the Woods? I sure have. After doing an excessive amount of analysis (E.G. pausing to count the number of steps on a staircase) I have an answer that is based on guess work and actual data. Much like my other posts that center around Michael Myers using his blinker, sharks scheming underwater and Leatherface running. I’ve done as much homework as possible to make an educated guess.

If you haven’t watched The Cabin in the Woods, it centers around a bunch of good looking people being killed to satiate the ancient god’s thirst for sacrifices. Helping the Gods are a bunch of office drones who make sure the killing goes off without a hitch. One of the main controllers Hadley (Bradley Whitford) is fascinated by the murderous Merman, who never seems to get picked by the unwitting victims. In true horror comedy fashion, irony strikes when he is killed by the Merman when everything goes wrong.

The problem is the slow moving creature had to crawl its way through long corridors and down some stairs to find his target. Watch this behind the scenes clip to see how slow it moves.

After watching and rewatching various clips from the movie I’ve patched together a likely path the Merman had to take. First, let me start off by telling you that the Merman moves at a very slow pace of 41.25 feet every 60 seconds. Basically, it reaches out one of its arms, and pulls itself forward very slowly. The most curious thing about the Merman is that there is no blood on its body when it finally attacks Hadley. Thus, it must’ve stayed away from the chaos and not murdered anyone because he is really clean. Here is the initial attack

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I believe the Merman was one of the first creatures to be delivered by the elevators, because it didn’t have to crawl through the insane amounts of blood. It exited the elevator and made its way through roughly 264 feet of corridors on the 100 level. I came up with 264 feet, when I tracked the time it took for the armed guards to reach the elevators. I clocked them doing a 15-minute mile (5280 / 15 = 352 feet a minute) and I did the math from there. They cautiously walked through the corridors for roughly 45 seconds (264 feet) and I believe their main security station was close to the staircase that the Merman had to go down. Take a look at the video to get a feel for the building.

Once at the stairs, the Merman had to go down approximately 40 feet of steps (we need this deleted scene). Why did he have to go downstairs? In the beginning of the film, Hadley and Sitterson are walking on the 100 level to get some coffee. You can clearly see they have to go down a staircase to get to their golf cart. Also, during the attack, you will notice the creatures going down stairs to attack their prey as well. I believe the 100 level was where the elevators exited the monsters because during the unicorn attack you see a sign for room 100. I don’t think the unicorn had a chance to go down some stairs so 100 level it is!

After they make the trek downstairs the duo get into a golf cart and go to the control office. I’m wagering the trip had to be at least 300 feet to warrant taking a golf cart. Since these two guys seem bored with their job and caught in a routine I think they take the cart everywhere out of boredom. Throw in an added 20 feet to get into the large control center and the total jumps up to 320 feet.

They have a sweet setup.

The Merman had to travel 624 feet (264 + 40 + 300 + 20) in order to kill Hadley and create a whole lot of irony. Since Mr. Merman could only move 41.25 feet every minute the trip took a total of at least 15.127 minutes (+/- 30 seconds.). I initially thought the scene played out in real time but after destroying my soul with multiple brutal viewings I started REALLY watching the video screens that showed the villains corralling various workers and killing them in Saw-esque fashion.

I am 93.456% certain that 15 minutes was the minimum amount of time needed to make the deadly trip. The Merman didn’t waste time killing anybody else and his 15-minute crawl left plenty of time for professional/mythical killers to horribly kill people via fire, chains, and gross surgery. Here is a drawing of the trip to give you a visual flavor.

There you have it! I’ve tracked the Merman’s journey!

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If you liked this post make sure to check out my series featuring random data and useless numbers. Start with my groundbreaking posts about Leatherface sprinting, Deep Blue Sea and Stellan Skarsgard, I Know What You Did Last Summer trunk cleaning and Michael Myer’s Halloween H20 driving then work your way down the list!