Sad news on a sad day: Andy Whitfield has died from non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. The 39-year-old actor, best known for his portrayal of Spartacus in the Starz series “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” passed away this morning in Sydney, Australia with his wife by his side.

Whitfield was set to begin work on season two of the hit show when he was diagnosed with the disease, 18 months ago. Starz produced and aired the spinoff series “Spartacus: Gods of the Arena” with the hope that Whitfield would recover and return to the show.

Unfortunately, Whitfield would not return. He was replaced in January by fellow Aussie Liam McIntyre after stepping down from the show for good.

Rest in Peace, Andy.

IFC Midnight has released a teaser trailer for director Chris Peckover’s intense and timely feature film debut Undocumented. Written by Peckover and Joe Peterson, the sure-to-be controversial thriller follows a group of young filmmakers taken hostage by vigilante “patriots” in New Mexico and forced to document the torture and murder of the Mexican immigrants they catch crossing the border.

Undocumented stars Alona Tal (Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3-D), Scott Mechlowicz (Mean Creek), Kevin Weisman (”Alias”), Greg Serano (”Scoundrels”), Yancey Arias (Legion), Noah Segan (Chain Letter), and Nicholas Tucci (Choose). IFC Midnight will make the film available for viewing ON Demand nationwide on Sept. 14.

I caught an early screening of the film over a year ago and just really dug it. You can read my spoiler-free review here.

Peep it:

This year’s Tokyo Game Show expo is just a couple of weeks away, but gamers are already getting a look at a trailer for Capcom’s Resident Evil: Revelations. Created for the Nintendo 3DS, the game is set between the events of Resident Evil 4 and 5 and introduces a controversial new top-heavy heroine named Rachel.

Maybe it’s my bleeding feminist heart, but—unlike the Rachel haters—I believe large breasted women don’t have to limit themselves to porn and pole work. I believe they can kill zombies. I believe they can fly. I believe they can soar and touch the sky. We really need to be more tolerant of big boobies.

Anyway … in the wake of the revamped Tomb Raider game, featuring a new flat-chested Lara Croft, it’s nice to see Capcom keeping things old school. What do you guys think?

Peep it:

Looks like model-turned-actress Analeigh Tipton has cozied up to Warm Bodies, Summit Entertainment’s adaptation of author Isaac Marion’s zombie-romance novel. The 22-year-old Cali-raised stunner joins a cast that includes Teresa Palmer, Nicholas Hoult, Rob Corddry, Cory Hardrict, Dave Franco, and possibly John Malkovich.

Warm Bodies is set during a zombie apocalypse and revolves around the unlikely, but blossoming, love affair between a zombie named R (Hoult) and Julie (Palmer), the girlfriend of one of his victims. Tipton will play Nora, Julie’s BFF. The film is written and directed by Jonathan Levine (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane).

Tipton first sashayed into people’s consciousness on The CW’s reality-competition show “America’s Next Top Model,”in which she placed third. This year, she made her feature film debut in Columbia Pictures’ Green Turd Hornet and scored some buzz for her performance in Warner Bros. Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Michelle Monaghan is set to star opposite Michael Keaton in director Joseph Ruben’s (Sleeping with the Enemy) new psych-thriller Penthouse North. Monaghan will play a traumatized photojournalist whose penthouse hideaway is invaded by a sadistic criminal (Keaton) in search of a hidden fortune.

Says Ruben:

Michelle Monaghan is an incredible actor whom audiences love and connect with completely. And Michael Keaton can do it all. He has a special talent for creating complicated villains who are dark, charming and ultimately terrifying. Put these actors together, and you’ve got the makings for a hell of a thriller.

Ruben is producing Penthouse North with American Psycho producer Jeff Sackman and the film’s writer David Loughery (Nurse 3-D, Obsessed). Keaton will serve as executive producer. The project is set to shoot this fall in Ottawa, Ontario.

Monaghan is coming off the Duncan Jones-directed sci-fi actioner The Source Code. The 35-year-old former model also starred in D.J. Caruso’s tech-thriller Eagle Eye and J.J. Abrams’ Mission Impossible III.

The Food Network is cooking up something sweet for horror fans this Halloween season. On Oct. 2, the cable channel will premiere “Halloween Wars,” a four-episode food challenge show in which five teams—made up of cake decorators, candy makers, and pumpkin carvers—will compete to create the most jaw dropping Halloween-themed treat ever.

Peep the episode list:

Premiering Sunday, October 2nd at 9pm ET/PT – SEASON PREMIERE!
“Witches and Scary Places”
Five teams go to battle to create mind-blowing Halloween-themed displays of a creepy witch and a scary haunted house. At the end of the battle, one team’s creation won’t be enough to impress the judges forcing them to go home with tricks and no treats.

Premiering Sunday, October 9th at 9pm ET/PT
“Scary Tales”
The four remaining teams battle to create Halloween-themed displays of a twisted version of a fairy tale.

Premiering Sunday, October 16th at 9pm ET/PT
“Zombies vs. Vampires”
Three remaining teams create an epic, sugary sweet battle between zombies and vampires.

Premiering Sunday, October 23rd at 9pm ET/PT
“Underworld”
In the finale, the last teams standing create mind-blowing displays of the unknown underworld. In the end, one team creates the scariest and most impressive display and wins the title of Halloween Wars champion and a $50,000 grand prize.

Hosted by Justice Willman (“Cupcake Wars”), the series will feature a panel of judges that will eliminate one team per episode until a $50,000 winner is announced. Each week, a celebrity arbiter will join the panel. Among them are former “Scream Queens” host Jaime King (pictured above), “Goosebumps” author R.L. Stine, Halloween starlet Scout Taylor-Compton, and rocker/director Rob Zombie.

“Halloween Wars” premieres Oct. 2 at 9pm on The Food Network.

IFC has released a trailer for director/degenerate Tom Six’s The Human Centipede Part 2 (Full Sequence), the controversial sequel to his outrageous 2009 hit about a mad German scientist’s quest to link people ass-to-mouth to form the Human Centipede.

The BBFC banned the sequel in the U.K., citing scenes of torture, humiliation, defecation, and forced barbed-wire sodomy as its reasons. None of that is shown in the trailer, but we do get a glimpse at something far more disturbing: a fat guy in tighty-whities.

Peep it:

We don’t usually post stories about wrinkly old actors on Clatto (don’t hate the player, hate the Google Analytics), but when that wrinkly old actor is Anthony Hopkins an exception must be made. The 73-year-old Academy Award winner is set to star in the new serial killer drama Solace.

Hopkins will play John Clancy, an FBI profiler with psychic abilities that is called in to assist in the hunt for a sophisticated serial killer. The script was originally written by Sean Bailey and Ted Griffin (Ravenous). Peter Morgan (Hereafter) is credited with the latest draft. No word yet on who will be directing.

Hopkins has starred in a grip of high profiled frighteners including New Line’s sleeper hit The Rite, Universal Pictures’ remake of The Wolfman, New Line’s cat-and-mouse thriller Fracture, Lee Tamahori’s survival-actioner The Edge, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula.

He is best known, however, for his Oscar winning turn as Hannibal Lecter in Jonathan Demme’s 1991 adaptation of author Thomas Harris’ chilling masterpiece “The Silence of the Lambs” and its sequels Red  Dragon and Hannibal.

A teaser trailer for writer/director Marc Leland’s upcoming slasher She Wolf Rising has been unleashed and is now ready to piss all over your shoes. The film stars genre babe Tiffany Shepis (pictured above) as a scream queen lured into the seedy world of underground filmmaking.

Peep it:

The film’s synopsis reads:

Gina Skylar, the world’s reining scream queen, wants to cross over into mainstream cinema and leave the B-horror genre behind her. Gina’s ticket out is her stellar performance in her latest slasher flick. The problem is that someone has stolen the footage.

Gina goes undercover and recruits her number one fan, Jake Bubar, to help. Together they explore the dark and dangerous side of underground filmmaking. Gina and Jake’s beliefs are challenged as they discover myths, legends, bloody decadence and forbidden love.

She Wolf Rising is described as a horror-comedy in the tradition of Tom Holland’s Fright Night. The film costars Timothy Mandala (“As the World Turns”), Debbie Rochon (Abducted II: The Reunion), Ruby Larocca (The Lost), and Tina Krause (Penny Dreadful).

Among Shepis’ many creds are such notable frighteners as Mark Vadik’s serial killer drama Cyrus, The Butcher Brothers’ quirky slasher The Violent Kind, the 2009 Night of the Demons remake, Detour (with Dead Lake’s Kelsey Wedeen), and Troma’s ode to Shakespeare Tromeo and Juliet.

To keep up with She Wolf Rising, make sure to check out the film’s Facebook page.

“Gossip Girl” and Piranha 3-D starlet Jessica Szohr can’t seem to stay away from critters with sharp teeth. The pretty 26-year-old has joined the cast of Love Bite, a horror sex-comedy that finds four friends attempting to survive a werewolf with an appetite for small town virgins.

No word on what role Szohr is playing, but I’m guessing she’s the werewolf because a movie about Szohr saving a town of male virgins with her vagina could only be written by my penis, and it’s been suffering from writer’s block for years now so it just couldn’t be.

Love Bite is directed by some guy named Andy De Emmony from a script by some other guys named Cris Cole and Ronan Blaney. The flick costars Luke Pasqualino (The Apparition) and Ed Speleers (A Lonely Place to Die). Production begins in Scotland on Oct. 9.