Telly Savalas is a total badass in this movie! I became an instant fan of his after watching Horror Express. A true man's man.

He also did another film just before thisa westernand they used the same train set for it (the reason HE was made-recycled set).
He sang the end song for that film.
He was an interesting diversion. Pretty cool how he tried to fight the zombie powers.
"On your knees monk."

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Telly's role in the third act was indeed a strange, oddball decision that seems to go against the grain of the film, but for me, it somehow works. The film is indeed horror schlock when all is said and done, but it is a lot of fun too. I really enjoy it for what it is and actually prefer this sort of thing to a lot of the newer films we get today.

Before Telly Savalas entered the picture, I found this movie to be a mildly entertaining horror schlock. But once that idiot walks onscreen and attempts to turn this into a comedy with his ridiculous overacting, I completely lost interest.

Does anyone know the story behind the late American actor, TELLY SAVALAS, accepting a role in HORROR EXPRESS? It's obvious Telly Savalas was having a lot of fun hamming it up in this Euro-horror movie with an over-the-top impression of his American television detective show character, Detective Kojak pretending to take on the role of Captain Kazan. What I mean is that Telly Savalas wasn't playing Captain Kazan directly. It's more like Detective Kojak playing the role of Captain Kazan. At least Telly Savalas didn't affect a bad Russian accent.
Except for one thing. Telly hadn't started playing Kojak when he filmed Horror Express. His first appearence as Kojak was The Marcus Nelson Murders. Horror Express was already made by then.
So Captain Kazan came
BEFORE
Kojak. Even the first film of Kojak (The Marcus Nelson Murders), and first season of Kojak, Telly was pretty subdued as the character.

As much as love Lee and Cushing, Savalas temporarily stole the show. A brilliant "third act" in my opinion.
http://www.rateyourmusic.com/~JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies

Also, Savalas was still around after performing in another Eugenio Martin film, "Vendetta".

The movie's producer, Bernard Gordon, writes in his book "Hollywood Exile, or How I Learned to Love the Blacklist":
In London, Ben Fisz had cast two highly regarded stars of the Hammer horror films, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. He had also made a deal for Telly Savalas to return to Madrid briefly for a truncated role. It was creative casting, and so was the deal made with Telly, who was, predictably, broke again. They had agreed to purchase a seven-year lease on a West End apartment, which would be his gift to the lovely lady with whom he was living. The added inducementthe gift was tax-free. I understood the cost was $22,000, which was a bargain for his services.
The lady Savalas was living with at the time was Sally SheridanNicollette Sheridan's mother!
It's interesting to read about the production (the eyes, the train) and you can view more pages from the book by searching for it at Google Books. There are some pages missing, but they're probably somewhere on the internet.

Telly did remind me of Theo Kojak in Horror Express. He was very entertaining and you could see he enjoyed the role.
"I know all about telegraph, little papa!"

I don't know how Mr. Savalas came to be cast in Horror Express, but I'm glad he did. The science fiction storyline in the finale of this film was to me reminiscent of Telly's execellent appearances on the original Twilight Zone.