An Alan Smithee Film is when a director seeking anonymity on a film, will use this “Alan Smithee” in the credits.

This can happen for a number of different reasons. It can happen when the director control has been tampered with and then the director no longer wants to be associated with the complete film. This happened for instance when in American History X director Tony Kaye had his name changed to Alan Smithee after Edward Norton edited it to give himself for screen time.

Another case when someone would use this is because the film is so terrible that the director doesn’t want to put their name on the work. This is the case for Hellraiser

After Burn Hollywood Burn, a pointless film, the secret was exposed to the world.

The Director’s Guild forced the name to be retired and now it can not be used anymore.
For 32 years, directors were able to hide behind the Alan Smithee name. Now, there is nowhere to hide.

This new term I found very interesting to read about because I have never heard of this before. It does make sense to not have your film on something that is so horrible it’s embarrassing. I’m sure there will be a new “Alan Smithee” to emerge and delight the world with more excruciating-to-watch films.