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Hulu has greenlighted Phony, a comedy pilot starring and executive produced by Connie Britton, from Drew Goddard’s Goddard Textiles and 20th Television.

Written, directed and executive produced by Nick Paley (Marcel The Shell With Shoes On), Phony is a comedic coming-of-age mystery about a teenager, Sonny, who wakes up in the hospital after a car accident to discover his mom — his only parent and his best friend — appears to have been replaced by an impostor.

Britton will play Sonny’s single mom Ellen and the principal of his high school.

The pilot brings Britton back to her comedy roots — she started her career with an arc on Ellen before landing a lead role opposite Michael J. Fox on Spin City.

Britton and Paley executive produce Phony alongside Charlie Alderman of Charlie’s Production Company and Drew Goddard and Sarah Esberg via Goddard Textiles. Goddard Textiles’ Andrea Massaro is a producer.

Claire leads a quiet life in Rome with her talented teenage daughter Robin. An accomplished pianist studying at a Catholic school, Robin’s world is turned upside down after a tragic bike accident leaves her clinically dead.

Against all odds, Robin returns to life, but she emerges severely changed from her brush with mortality. As Robin acts more sullen and volatile, Claire fears some unseen tormentor has followed her child back from beyond.

Directed by Robert Salerno and starring Connie Britton as the desperate mother, Here After explores a haunting supernatural scenario. While Salerno shows flashes of visual flair, much of the film takes a sadly familiar horror path.

Relying heavily on worn genre tropes, it struggles to craft complex characters or relationships to hold viewers’ interest through the longer moments. Its emotional finale hints at greater depth left largely untapped in the journey there.

Meeting the Characters

Claire is a devoted mother,...

The thing about guilt is that it can have a life of its own. A person who blames themselves for the loss of a loved one can live the rest of their lives in guilt because they refuse to forgive themselves for the past mistakes. [Spoiler Alert] That is what happened to Claire (Connie Britton), whose life completely changed after she lost her five-year-old daughter Rose in a car accident. Claire’s car fell off the bridge into the water while her twin daughters, Rose and Robin, were sitting in the back. While submerged underwater, Claire tried to unbuckle Rose’s seat belt, but she couldn’t. She was losing her breath and therefore decided to save Robin and left her other daughter behind. Throughout these years, Claire tried her best to suppress this emotional trauma, but she couldn’t. The incident kept haunting her every now and then. Robin stopped talking after her sister’s death,...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on September 12th, reviewing the new release “Here After,” a parapsychological thriller featuring Connie Britton. In theaters on September 13th.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Britton portrays Claire, an American living in Rome with her daughter Robin (Freya Hannan-Mills) who communicates with sign language. She’s not deaf, but mute, not talking since a childhood trauma. On a rainy day, Robin gets into a bicycle accident, so severe she dies … for 15 minutes. When she emerges from a coma, she seems back to normal, even regaining her speech. But as the weeks after the accident go by, odd events eventually overtake Robin and Claire, so much so that Claire starts to question whether Robin is the same person she once was.

”Here After” is in theaters on September 13th. Featuring Connie Britton, Freya Hannam-Mills, Giovanni Cirfiera, Tommaso Basili, Babetida Sadjo.

“Here After” is a new live-action supernatural thriller, directed by Robert Salerno, starring Connie Britton, Freya Hannan-Mills, Giovanni Cirfiera, Tommaso Basili, Syama Rayner, Babetida Sadjo, Alessandro Bressanello, Andrea Bruschi, Alessandro Riceci, Giorgia Trasselli, Laura Anzani and Lollo Franco, opening September 13, 2024 in theaters:

“…’Claire Hiller’ is overjoyed when her daughter ‘Robin’ is miraculously revived after a near fatal accident.

“But her relief turns to dread as Claire notices changes in her daughter…

“…suspecting something ‘dark’ has Robin back from the brink of death…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

Many movies have dealt with the agonized grief that follows a child’s death. More than a few, notably “Pet Sematary” and its ilk, have dealt with the … er, awkwardness when said child unnaturally comes back to life, or at least un-death. Smoothly crafted but uninspired “Here After” tries to have it both ways, playing that resurrection for horror-adjacent creepiness that never quite goes anywhere, then pivoting to a sentimental mix of sacrifice and redemption similar to “faith-based entertainment” without quite making the commitment.

Despite the efforts of toplining Connie Britton as an American expat in Rome, Robert Salerno’s feature directorial bow ultimately feels like a supernatural drama suited for television, too mild in its suspense and too pat in its soapy emphasis on maternal suffering. Paramount is launching the co-production in U.S. theaters and on digital this Friday, several weeks after its Italian release.

Over the last quarter-century,...

Connie Britton stars in Here After, a gripping new supernatural thriller. In the movie, Claire Hiller is overjoyed when her daughter Robin is miraculously revived after a fatal accident. However, her relief turns to dread as Claire notices changes in her daughter, suspecting something dark has followed her back from the brink of death.

The movie is an edge-of-your-seat thriller which keeps you guessing and avoids heading down the all-too-familiar trappings of typical "demonic possession" horror stories; it's all the better for it and, unsurprisingly, Britton is superb in the role. 

Last week, we sat down with Connie to learn more about how she approached this project and the challenges this part presented. Here After features the Italian language and a mother/daughter dynamic that's far from the norm, not to mention some very intense scenes involving water so she really had to bring her A-Game to this one. 

We...

“Here After” is a new live-action supernatural thriller, directed by Robert Salerno, starring Connie Britton, Freya Hannan-Mills, Giovanni Cirfiera, Tommaso Basili, Syama Rayner, Babetida Sadjo, Alessandro Bressanello, Andrea Bruschi, Alessandro Riceci, Giorgia Trasselli, Laura Anzani and Lollo Franco, opening September 13, 2024 in theaters:

“…’Claire Hiller’ is overjoyed when her daughter ‘Robin’ is miraculously revived after a near fatal accident.

“But her relief turns to dread as Claire notices changes in her daughter…

“…suspecting something ‘dark’ has Robin back from the brink of death…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

"I need my daughter back..." Paramount has revealed the trailer for a supernatural horror thriller movie titled Here After, arriving in theaters starting in September this fall. The film is the first feature directed by a long-time producer named Robert Salerno, who is moving to a role behind the lens this time in addition to producing. The plot for Here After is one that has been seen many times before: When her teen daughter displays increasingly disturbing behavior after a near death experience, a mom becomes convinced the girl brought something evil back from the other side. It seems a dark force has followed her back from the brink of death. This stars Connie Britton as Claire, Freya Hannan-Mills, Giovanni Cirfiera, Tommaso Basili, and Syama Rayner. Alas this is so uninteresting & derivative, will be an easy skip for most people. // Continue Reading ›...

Robert Salerno is known for producing many great films, including “21 Grams” (2003), “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” (2020), and “A Single Man” (2009). But the producer who has already helmed one short makes the big leap to feature-length filmmaking with the new supernatural horror/thriller “Here After.”

Starring Connie Britton (“The White Lotus”), Freya Hannan-Mills, and Giovanni Cirfiera, the plot focuses on a mother’s (Britton) teen daughter (Hannan-Mills) who starts to display increasingly disturbing behavior after a near-death experience.

Continue reading ‘Here After’ Trailer: Connie Britton Stars In A New Supernatural Thriller at The Playlist.