A horror-comedy about teenage sexuality, parental embarrassment and a very unexpected body part.
Alun Rhys Morgan’s Cegsex turns age‑verification anxiety into a surreal horror-comedy — a mouth on a forearm and a house full of prayers, picked for Bolton International Film Festival 2026.
Play · youtubeAlun Rhys Morgan is the director of Cegsex, one of Directors Notes’ picks from the Bolton International Film Festival 2026 programme. The short is a compact, darkly comic horror about a young man exploring his sexuality at home when a very strange misfortune intervenes.
Directors Notes describes the central gag plainly: "a mouth suddenly appears on our unfortunate protagonist’s forearm," and the film builds comedy from that body‑horror image colliding with domestic embarrassment — his mother is hosting a prayer meeting upstairs while the noises below disrupt the spiritual retreat.
The piece positions itself as social commentary as well as gag comedy. Directors Notes reports that "Alun Rhys Morgan admitted that he was inspired by the fact that adult content has been locked behind age verification gates in the United Kingdom," framing the film as a response to how young people discover their sexuality in a restricted online landscape.
Tonally the short leans into embarrassment and surrealism rather than shock. Directors Notes praises it as "absolutely fantastic at portraying a surreal version of that cringe‑inducing experience," arguing the film mines an experience many viewers will recognise — awkward moments with parents — and pushes it into uncanny territory.
Cegsex was selected by Directors Notes from a 300‑short programme at Bolton. If you want to see Morgan’s work in context, Directors Notes notes the festival runs in person from 30 September–4 October 2026, with an online programme from 7–18 October 2026.
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