This spring, Margaretville was abuzz with cameras and revving engines, as documentary filmmaker Christina Eliopoulos and her crew filmed Demon On Wheels. The film is an homage to local mechanic Mike Ondish's 1968 Shelby Mustang, and to the days when Ondish and his "ridge rider" rum-running buddies used to race through the mountains, a bunch of real-life Dukes of Hazzard.
Eliopolous's work is about to pay off. And locals who know Ondish and his friends are about to get a sneak peek at what the film production crew has been up to since the spring. On Sunday, October 24, the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance is presenting a 35-minute screening of the work in progress, at 2pm at the Tusten Theater in Narrowsburg. It's part of an afternoon of short films produced around the region.
This May, the Watershed Post visited the film crew on-site at the Van Benschoten farm, off Route 28 between Margaretville and Andes, and took a little footage as Ondish and his friends horsed around in some old beater cars rescued from the junkyard. (A caveat: Our camera, and our filmmaking skills, are vastly inferior to the work of Eliopolous, producer George Wieser, and their team.) We've been sitting on the footage for awhile, but it seemed a good time to bust out a few clips. Ondish is a great talker. We're looking forward to seeing him on the big screen.
Mike Ondish talking about the Shelby's glory days:
Scariest cat ever. Not sure if Fluffy's going to be in the film, but he was just so cute, we couldn't resist putting him in.
