This Character Deserved Better in the Halloween Franchise

The Big Picture

• Nurse Marion Chambers is a beloved character in the Halloween franchise who unfortunately meets a brutal end in both Halloween H20 and Halloween Kills, despite her potential for a more significant role.
• In Halloween H20, Marion's return is short-lived as she is quickly killed by Michael Myers, while in Halloween Kills, she valiantly tries to fight back but ultimately meets the same fate.
• It's disappointing that Nurse Marion's return to the franchise was wasted, as she had the potential for a meaningful redemption and partnership with Laurie Strode, but instead, she became just another victim in Michael Myers' body count.

Most characters in horror films, apart from the final girl, of course, are usually there to add nothing more than a tally to the body count. The Halloween movies are no different. The franchise is notorious for killing its side characters, but while it may be expected at this point, there’s one death that still stings: Nurse Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens). We first met Nurse Marion in the original ‘78 film that started it all. In it, she’s a nurse at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, and Dr. Loomis’ (Donald Pleasance) right-hand (wo)man, meaning she’s very well acquainted with Michael Myers. Her addition to the first film is brief, but she gets a more prominent feature in Halloween II. She’s the one who delivers the twist that Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is Michael Myers's sister. Her actual screen time may have been slight, but she left a mark nonetheless. She’s a total badass of a character, poised yet brave, and a perfect companion to Loomis’ more eccentric personality. So her death hurt, but what hurt more was that we had to watch her die on two separate occasions.

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Nurse Marion Is Brutally Murdered in 'Halloween H20'

Having stayed outside of Haddonfield Hospital in Halloween II, Marion managed to avoid Michael’s second rampage of the night. When Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (which turns 25 today) was released, it claimed to be a direct sequel to Halloween II, and thus it brought back Nurse Chambers. However, trouble was immediately anticipated when she was the first character to arrive on screen – that’s never a good sign in these movies. As she walks up to her front door she steps in broken glass, indicating her house has been broken into. She heads next door where she’s greeted by her teen neighbor Jimmy (played by a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his friend Tony (Branden Williams). They call the police who say they will be 15 minutes, so Jimmy takes it upon himself to check out the house for her. The house is free of burglars, but her office has been ransacked. When she herself goes in, she finds the power has been cut so she investigates with a flashlight leading the way to her office. In it, she finds the file on Laurie Strode on the desk — completely empty. Warning bells immediately go off in her head... it has to be Michael! But before she can dwell on it too much, she hears a noise in the house and goes to investigate some more. She finds her front door open and as her back is turned, we, the audience, see Michael emerge from a corner. Her fate is spelled out now, it's just a matter of how it happens.

She runs back to Jimmy’s house and walks through the strangely quiet house only to find both Jimmy and Tony dead. Tony’s body falls on top of her, and just when she pushes him off, she comes face to face with Michael who has just walked in the back door. She takes off in a sprint but as we all know, not even the fastest runner on Earth can outwalk Michael Myers. The cops arrive at Marion’s house, and despite her best effort to fend Michael off and attract the police’s attention, Michael ultimately wins out and slits her throat, killing off the legacy character in a brutal and sad scene. She was so close! It was so exciting to see the chain-smoking nurse back on screen, it’s a shame she was killed off so soon. We could’ve got the Nurse Chambers and Laurie team-up we deserved! At the very least, she could have lasted a full ten minutes.

‘Halloween Kills’ Kills Nurse Marion... Again

Like H20, the David Gordon-Green Halloweentrilogy negated all prior entries to the franchise. Unlike H20 though, it even erased Halloween II from its timeline, due to the much-dividing sibling storyline. So Halloween Kills is technically the first time we’ve seen Nurse Marion since the original ‘78 film. In the years since then, she's become close with Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards), Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), and Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet), as they were all past victims of Michael and bonded over their shared trauma. After Michael breaks out once again, Marion, Tommy, Lindsey, and Lonnie, as well as the rest of the town, set out to find him and put an end to his killing spree once and for all. However noble the action is, it proves fatal for all except Lindsey.

Sitting in the car, Marion sees Michael in the mirror as he begins to climb onto the vehicle's roof, mimicking the original film. In fact, the entire sequence mirrors the original film, because Halloween Kills is cheesy like that. He smashes the window with his palm and grips Marion by the hair, yanking her back as she frantically tries to shoot at him. She’s eventually freed of him as he focuses on another passenger in the car. But rather than running, Marion bravely points the gun straight at Michael. With a clear shot at him, she ends up giving her own dying words, “This is for Doctor Loomis.” It would have been a perfect moment, had the gun not been empty just as she went to shoot. Michael, of course, has the upper hand now since she is completely weaponless, and stabs her repeatedly. And once again, we say goodbye to the legacy character.

Nurse Marion Was a Minor Character Who Played a Huge Role

While Marion teaming up with Tommy and Lindsey was a great addition to the otherwise lacking Halloween Kills, as well as her attempted redemption for Doctor Loomis, it doesn’t save her from falling victim to Michael once again. This time, though, it would have been nice to see her make it out. Aside from Loomis and Laurie, she had the closest connection to Michael, she deserved to do some damage to him. The Halloween franchise is great at crafting strong female characters, and Marion was no exception, despite her minimal screen time. The times that she was around were quite pivotal to the overarching story. Her first scene was the night Michael broke out of Smith’s Grove, and she was the one that revealed the shocking twist that Laurie is Michael’s sister, which helped Loomis find his whereabouts in the second film. Plus, she was just a great partner for Loomis, he’s so eccentric and out there, whereas she’s more stoic and level-headed. They balanced each other perfectly.

I will say that her death mimicking her first-ever scene was a neat touch, but it doesn’t justify why she had to die in the first place. Couldn’t she have gotten that much desired redemption for Loomis? Her return to the franchise was so exciting, yet her potential was sorely wasted. She was brought back simply to die and be another tally in Halloween Kills' absurdly high body count. Nurse Chambers deserved better than to die not once, but twice, with no real pay-off. A better ending for the character would have been to have her and Laurie reunite and put a stop to the Boogeyman once and for all, but I digress.