The nail-biting profusion of TWIN PEAKS and THE X-FILES hails from Daniel Ast, and features an ensemble cast including Christina Wren (BATMAN V. SUPERMAN) and Robert Broski (TWIN PEAKS : THE RETURN). We spoke to Ast about the inspiration for the series and its interesting beginnings.
L.A Macabre: How long of a journey has this been for you?
(Oof) Good question. L.A. Macabre has been a six or seven-year journey so far. The first season was released as a found footage web series via YouTube in 2014-2015 and then re-released on Amazon Prime in 2016. For Season Two, I spent all of 2015 writing the 300-page script and then we spent 2016-2017 filming, 2018-2019 in post, and now we’re excited to finally have it out for everyone to see!
What was the inspiration?
I was reading Helter Skelter alone at night and the ideas in the book were just terrifying. The concept “creepy crawling” really creeped me out and it features heavily in L.A. Macabre. The Manson Family used to break into homes a night and move people’s stuff around while they slept. This was just so the people would know, when they woke up, that someone had been in their home. The psychological terror tactics were so simple and potent and I wanted to harness some of those concepts and set them in a fictional story where they could run wild.
Helter Skelter has been made into two films and there have been lots of Manson Family movies — but there were certain elements where I thought “this is terrifying, and not just because the Manson Family did it, but because ANYBODY still could.” 
And you wrote every episode of the 49 eps produced?
I wrote Seasons One and Two of L.A. Macabre and the bulk of the ancillary content that supports the show. There are currently 15 thirty-minute episodes (Season One used to be 11 shorter episodes, but they’ve been recut into 3 thirty-minute episodes for the release of Season Two).
Season One of L.A. Macabre was originally a transmedia web series on YouTube with various forms of content; Episodes, prequel episodes, fake behind-the-scenes episodes, and Jamie’s Vlogs It’s tricky to properly list these on IMDb, which is how they get listed as “Episodes.” That said, Ryan Bartley and I worked together to develop and weave the Jamie Vlogs into the main episodes of Season One, and then she wrote the Jamie Vlogs herself! These vlogs are still on our YouTube channel so you can see how they flow through the story.
Did you have to compromise here and there though with the producing committee on the direction of storylines?
Oh no! Fortunately, there was no producing committee and there were no compromises in the story. David Schatanoff, Jr. and I are the producers of Season Two and the story was entirely in my hands. L.A. Macabre was a very, very small scale indie production with highly ambitious goals and I’m very proud to say that not only did we achieve our ambition, sometimes we exceeded them! For example, the car and train chase in Episode Eleven Train of Season Two was not in the script! It was an idea developed during production based on locations we’d found and story beats I wanted to expand. While more financial support would be an exciting advantage for Season Three, the creative control of a small indie project can be a wonderful benefit so long as you can find scrappy and creative solutions to achieve them.
The first season is almost a completely different beast to the second. Can you talk about the difference between the two seasons – and also, how they link up?
Season One was designed as a transmedia found footage webs series intended to play out on YouTube. The idea was that you were watching the characters’ YouTube page as they made their show “L.A. Macabre” and as they uploaded their experiences each week, the story spiraled further and further out of their control. By the end of the first season we knew that the story had grown too ambitious to continue as a web series or as a found footage project. The scope, the number of characters, and the various story threads of Season Two demanded the sprawl of a traditional TV show. Season Two is a direct continuation of Season One, but the format shifts accordingly to accommodate the expanding canvas.
Did you know most of the actors cast in the show?
The cast is a mix of friends I had worked with previously and people I was working with for the first time. For Season One, I had worked with Aidan Bristow and Corsica Wilson on a previous film I had made, Claire (released as Claire Is Dead.) Ryan Hellquist and Ryan Bartley were new additions, and Christina Wren was a friend prior, though it was my first time working with her. They’re all good friends now.
For Season Two the expanding cast meant casting and meeting new people. Some roles were written for and cast with people I already knew and wanted to work with, but many were brand new additions, both as cast members and now, as friends.
The making of L.A. Macabre was a positive experience and everyone was having a blast banding together as a family to bring the series to life. That cemented a lot of great friendships and created many new ones.
You have a role too -but a small one. At any time did you consider playing one of the leads?
While it was fun to pop up in the show à la Hitchcock, I am not much of an actor and my cameo was largely born out of necessity. On the day of filming, we simply didn’t have enough new cast for that role and I knew I would be available at both locations necessary to film it. So much of the success of this show was trying to find the simplest, most pragmatic solution to the problem as quickly as possible. I just hope my little cameo lives up to the performances of the rest of the amazing cast.
After “Once Upon a Time In Hollywood”, there’s renewed interest in cult figures. Would you be keen on exploring the life and legend of any of them on film?
I really enjoyed Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and it takes place in a time and place I find incredibly interesting in our history, but I wouldn’t say cult figures, in particular, are of strong interest to me outside of the fictional world of L.A. Macabre. Manson definitely looms large over our show, but I’m not sure I’d be interested in adapting his story, or Jim Jones, or any others. While I find those stories fascinating from a historical perspective, I have many other scripts and projects I’d rather bring to life.