You’re going to have to make an effort to find a theater (or very soon a streamer) playing “Watch the Skies.” And the whole point of this review is to ensure that sci-fi fans make the effort.

Smuggled into cinemas three years after its Swedish release by minor distributor XYZ Films, “Skies” is a plucky, low-budget action comedy about UFO hunting, and a lightweight thriller that wears its inspirations and plot point borrowings with pride.

With a little “Stranger Things,” a bit of “Interstellar, a touch of “Back to the Future” featuring a Saab, not a DeLorean, and a heaping helping of “Safety Not Guaranteed,” it’s about UFO hunting the Swedish way — dogged, organized, occasionally anarchic but always accompanied by paper work, tarts and fresh pots of coffee.

Denise (Inez Dahl Torhaug) grew up in the swirl of her father Uno’s (Oscar Töringe) obsession. He was a founder of the ragtag group of “Truth is Out There” fanatics — UFO Sweden. We meet Denise when she’s 8 (Lilly Lexfors) and already game for any crazy quest Dad cooks up.

But that’s when Uno and his Saab disappeared into the Swedish mountains — back in 1988. His risk-taking got astrophysicist and fellow UFO Sweden enthusiast Lennart (Jesper Barselius) fired, as their biggest stunt was stealing data from the Swedish weather bureau.

Uno’s big theory was that botched weather forecasts are connected to UFO sightings, and that this ties into peak nights of the Aurora Borealis (the Northern Lights). But after his disappearance, even Lennart can’t make heads or tails out of Uno’s mathematical scribblings.

Denise grew up orphaned and troubled, hanging with vandals, mastering breaking and entering and the birth-of-the-Internet hobby of hacking. It’s 1996, and seeing her father’s empty Saab after it crashes through a farmer’s barn convinces her “My Dad is still alive, ‘out there'” somewhere.

There’s nothing for it but to reconnect with Lennart, biker babe gone to seed
Töna (Isabelle Kyed), flaky magical thinker Karl (Niklas Kvarnbo Jönsson), aged plodder Gunnar (Håkan Ehn) and edgy and sometimes armed Mats (Mathias Lithner), the relics of UFO Sweden who will pile into Lennart’s VW Vanagon to help her discover the “truth.”

Eva Melander plays Kicki, the sketchy head of Swedish weather research, who seems to be hiding something — perhaps their own investigation of Uno’s theories. The idea that she might steal credit for Uno’s insights makes her the villain of the piece.

Denise also has to evade a cop (Sara Shirpey) who has taken an interest in her welfare, but won’t have her stealing government secrets to feed her obsession. Denise and her motley crew will go into the country, into the woods, into a lake and into government labs looking for answers.

But before any and every step they take, Gunnar has to make the coffee and pull the tarts out of the UFO Sweden HQ refrigerator.

Votes must be taken, risks avoided and Denise recruited and pinned as a member of this venerable — at least in their own minds — organization — all according to Roberts Rules of Order and their own bylaws.

The comedy comes from the officious slow-walking UFO Sweden way of things, and the way nothing-to-lose-Denise revives their more gonzo “X-Files” fanatical past.

And the picture’s heart is its coming-of-age story, a child seeking the truth about her Dad, come what may.

Torhaug makes a fiesty lead, literally bouncing off older, more staid other characters.

Director and co-writer Victor Darnell keeps the movie more or less on the move, and he drifts late model Volvos and Saabs in the car chases, and does things to a classic Saab 90 that would get him locked up anywhere but Sweden.

The effects have a hint of “Close Encounters” polish, but on a “Safety Not Guaranteed” budget.

It’s dark and silly, fun and even touching. The Swedish cast does a decent job of performing it in English (almost 1970s ABBA phonetically at times) and the laughs land.

It won’t be in theaters long, so watch the streaming menus for “Watch the Skies” if you miss it at the multiplex.

Rating: PG-13, bloody violence, smoking, profanity

Cast: Inez Dahl Torhaug, Jesper Barkselius, Sara Shirpey,
Håkan Ehn, Eva Melander, Isabelle Kyed, Mathias Lithner, Niklas Kvarnbo Jönsson and Oscar Töringe

Credits: Directed by Victor Darnell, scripted by Victor Darnell and Jimmy Nivrén Olsson. An XYZ release.

Running time: 1:55