One of this year's Smithee Award nominees for worst picture, "Boa vs. Python."

Love movies that are so terrible, they’re funny?

Then you should definitely check out the Smithee Awards, a free, annual event that was born in Ann Arbor 20 years ago.

At the ceremony (happening this year on Saturday, April 16 from 7 p.m.-midnight at U-M’s 1800 Chem Building, 930 N. University Ave.), audience members vote for the "winner" in 19 categories — including “Most Ludicrous Premise,” “Stupidest Looking Monster,” “Worst Science,” “Inane Dialogue,” and “Worst Special Effect,” among others — while watching clips from nominated films and eating food of a similar nutritional quality. Admission is free.

Here are some quick facts about the Smithees, with some accompanying quotes from Smith-ka-teer Amy Conlon.

• The only requirement for Smithee-nominated movies is that they be available on home video; the year of the their release is irrelevant, and you probably won’t have heard or seen any of the nominees, since Smith-ka-teers primarily aim to unearth “gems” that otherwise might go un-ridiculed.

• The Smithees got their name from the pseudonym long used by Hollywood directors (Allen/Alan Smithee) who wish to dissociate themselves from a project — almost always with good reason.

• Founding Smith-ka-teers Bryan Cassidy and Greg Pearson, while grad students at U-M, were inspired in 1991 by a role playing game (focused on actors playing roles in B-movies) called “It Came from the Late, Late, Late Show.” Cassidy started filming his own schlocky films, which led to cast parties wherein attendees watched bad videos and ate junk food. From these humble beginnings, the Smithees were born. “The first Smithee Awards only had an audience of 15 people, and now we’ve grown to fill one of the largest lecture halls on campus,” said Conlon.

• About 6 Smith-ka-teers, after watching lots of awful movies (“We might watch more than 60 bad movies a year,” Conlon estimates), submit Smithee nominations to the Supreme Committee, which pares the list down to five nominees in each category.

• How do the Smith-ka-teers keep from getting worn down by all the terrible-ness? They “refresh (their) palate periodically with good cinema,” according to Conlon, and “liven it up with theme nights. Coming up soon is ‘Shark Weak,’ where we’ll eat fish sticks, bagels and lox, and blue jello with fruity ‘chum’ while watching ‘Shark Attack 3,’ ‘Sharks in Venice,’ and maybe ‘Megashark vs. Giant Octopus.’”

• Over the years, the Smithees have branched out to also offer annual screenings at conventions like Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio; Smith College’s ConBust in Northampton, Massachusetts; and Penguicon in Troy.

• “Ann Arbor’s show has the most diverse crowd, since it’s not presented as part of a convention,” said Conlon. “We have senior citizens and students, families (though we do warn people that the show has an ‘R’ rating … ), B-movie fan clubs, Goths — all sorts of people. We once had a tour group of potential students and their parents come by, and the tour guide had to all but drag one kid’s dad out of the auditorium.”

• “Every five years, we take the winners from each category and pit them against one another in an extra show we call the Mega-Meta Smithee Awards,” said Conlon. “It's kind of like a B-movie Celebrity All-stars. This year is our 20th, so after the final winners are determined, we'll put together the Fourth Mega-Meta show, which we will present in Ann Arbor this fall.”

• In the history of the Smithee Awards, only three nominated films have actually had Allen Smithee listed as director: 2009 Most Ludicrious Premise nominee "Gunhed"; 1986 Best One-Liner nominee "Let's Get Harry"; and 1993 multi-category nominee "Solar Crisis."

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.