Alter Ego, the new film from Carlos Batts, is very, very much in the artsy erotica camp; properly emphasized, the ARTSY erotica camp. AE is a carnival of sensuality and skin and bent gender in slow motion, reminiscent of David Lynch and, less frequently, Andy Warhol.

AE is Carlos Batts’ tribute to April Flores/Fatty D, the voluptuous erotic performer and “super muse” who slides effortlessly between phat azz lowrider chica, living porcelain doll, and deadly stitched-up horror vixen. Batts’ moody, ethereal imagery captures a wide-ranging series of Flores’ erotic experiences, some of them sexy, some of them disturbing. Slow-paced and set to a stew of electro and hip-hop, it’s the kind of thing you watch in a quiet room at 2am when no one’s awake.

The altporn scene is just taking off in the mainstream adult industry, and it’s likely that we’re going to get a lot more punk/goth porn vids on the market. I’m not complaining, because I dig watching punk rawk girls get it on bigtime, but films like Alter Ego are important contrasts to easier-to-swallow porn. We need works like this to remind ourselves of the wide-ranging possibilities of erotic art.

• Buy Alter Ego
• Carlos Batts
• April Flores