Eric Roberts

Eric Roberts

Eric Roberts is to star in 'The Human Centipede 3'.

The 57-year-old actor - who bagged an Academy Award nomination for his role in the 1985 thriller 'Runaway Train' - has been cast as the Governor in Tom Six's final sequence of the trilogy, which will feature a staggering 500-person centipede, Entertainment Weekly reports.

Eric - who is the brother of actress Julia Roberts - will star alongside the former porn actress Bree Olsen, Robert LaSardo, Tommy Lister, Dieter Laser and Laurence R. Harvey in the gritty horror.

The first installment of the 'The Human Centipede' - which told the story of a German doctor who kidnapped three tourists and surgically joined them mouth to anus - became a social media phenomenon after it was released in 2009.

The second horror sequence - which saw a British man watch the first series and create his own 12-person -long centipede - took things to another level and was originally banned in the UK after it was branded "revolting" by the BBFC.

Tom - who wrote and directed all three films - has promised the final chapter will be even more gruesome and will "make the last one look like a Disney film".

'The Human Centipede 3' will be released in the UK later this year.