SINGAPORE — Tawdry visual effects, a logic-defying plot, cheesy performances, flubbed lines and dialogue littered with eye-rolling gems — these are the perfect ingredients for “so-bad-it’s-good” films.

Every film fan worth his or her salt know that not all ignoble offerings are created equal. Some movies are so awful, they eventually end up being cult favourites.

And if watching these is one of your guilty pleasures, then you can check out the ongoing Fail Film Festival at independent cinema space The Projector.

The small initiative kicked off last Saturday with the first film in the Sharknado series, the infamous movie trilogy about a tornado of vicious sharks dumped over Los Angeles. It wraps up with the next two groan-worthy installments today and tomorrow.

Organisers and film enthusiasts Marcus Huang, Jeremy Goh, Josh Tang and Christl Li are hoping their festival will create conversations about what failure is.

“The idea is to use film as a medium to start a conversation on our society’s fear of failure and get people to be more open towards failure by showing that something can be of value even if it is critically panned,” shared Li, who is a civil servant by day. “So don’t write off films that aren’t critically acclaimed, because you can really enjoy them!”

One of the festival’s inspirations was an event held by American company Rifftrax, where comedians came in to mock and riff on Sharknado in front of a “live” audience.

“Amongst the myriad of B-grade films, Sharknado stands out because it has the so-bad-it’s-good cachet. Despite the lower-than-average viewership during its premiere (in 2013), it was a hit on social media and went viral very quickly, with celebrities also chiming in and tweeting about it. It went on to become the most watched original film encore on the Syfy channel on cable television. This movie alone helped its production company increase their projected revenue from US$5 million (S$7 million) to $19 million in 2013,” explained Li.

The movie — which is described on the Rotten Tomatoes website as a “proud, shameless and gloriously brainless movie” — was the perfect example of a “‘fail film’ that did not achieve initial success but went on to achieve cult status because audiences appreciated something in it that critics overlooked,” said Li.

Another inspiration was an event at last year’s Sundance Film Festival called Free Fail Film, which encouraged people to embrace failure as an essential part of risk-taking, innovation and creativity.

“That is something that we want to embrace ourselves,” she said. “When we examined the local film festival scene, we thought every film festival in Singapore centred on pretty serious themes or is geographically based. Why can’t we have a film festival that celebrates the entertaining aspect of film? Can we bring that communal experience of sitting together with a bunch of friends, riffing at a film, into a larger setting?”

That’s exactly what they’re hoping to achieve with Fail Film Fest: A no-holds-barred, riff-all-you-want audience experience where tweeting, jeering, mock-groaning and interaction is encouraged during the screenings themselves.

Li continued: “We think that the film selection in Singapore is saturated with Hollywood blockbusters or art-house films, and want to provide a different selection to cater to the crowds who want to let their hair down, laugh at films openly and, most importantly, have a fun and entertaining time.”

Fail Film Festival’s Sharknado 2: The Second One and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No continue today and tomorrow, respectively, at The Projector. For more details, visit http://www.failfilmfestival.com.