Nearly everything that’s bad about big-budget Hollywood science fiction films is remedied by Gareth Edwards’ debut feature, Monsters. While they’re visually hectic to a fault, Edwards keeps a more measured pace. While they are mostly concerned with getting to the next action set piece, Edwards is actually interested in telling a story. While they’re often so proud of their multi-million dollar special effects, this movie, made for less than half a million dollars on inexpensive, readily available equipment, often looks just as stunning as those films, without feeling the need to show off about it. And Edwards has reason to show off: his effects are seamless, and in the abundant moments that have no monsters at all, this is an absolutely gorgeous film, with the director showing a real eye for composition and lighting, acting as his own cinematographer.

This is a relationship drama intertwined with political allegory, with the titular beasties mostly there to facilitate those primary aims. It’s set in a near future, in which a probe sent into space to collect possible evidence of extraterrestrial life crashed in the desert southwest six years before the events of the film, releasing the seeds for a huge, violent alien life form that resembles a land-walking electrified octopus. The creatures have infested the northern areas of Mexico, and U.S. and Mexican authorities — seemingly having given up on eradicating the creatures — collaborate on a containment strategy that includes a giant wall along the border that makes the Great Wall of China look like a white picket fence.

The monsters are migratory, and every year, certain areas must be closed off by a certain date. Ferries to the U.S. across the Gulf of Mexico run $5,000 per person, and most people are simply resigned to dealing with the scourge until it recedes. Two people who don’t want to wait it out? Sam (Whitney Able), the daughter of a rich American magazine publisher, who finds herself stuck in Mexico for undefined reasons, and Kaulder (Scoot McNairy), a photographer who takes pictures for the same magazine, and who has been tasked by his boss with getting daddy’s little girl back to safety before it’s too late.