At the Seacoast premiere of “The Norman Rockwell Code,” writer, director and co-producer Fred Catalfo stood at the rear of Dover’s Strand Theater nervously. “Will they laugh?” he wondered. Scattered anonymously in seats throughout the nearly sold-out house were local musician Rick Twombly, who plays a gas station attendant in the film, actor Mike Walsh, who stars as symbologist Langford Fife, and Danica Carlson, who stars as the murder victim’s granddaughter, Sofa.

With the onscreen unscrambling of the title anagram, from “Catch Older Lemon Knower” to “The Norman Rockwell Code,” the crowd laughed a little; with the unscrambling of “Hamlet’s Carload of Fat” to “Alfred Thomas Catalfo,” they laughed a lot. Catalfo could relax—and so could the audience.

Filmmaking is by far one of the most difficult art forms. Hollywood makes it look seamless, but even creating a half-hour film more resembles running a business than making art, and independent filmmakers must work out the details of lighting, sound, camera angles, directing, editing, costuming, acting and more by themselves, on the fly, usually after hours, and with only a small group of collaborators. Inevitably, the seams show, and too often, the strongest emotion such films generate is regret at the loss of time in the viewer’s life.

When a small independent film works, it’s because the art—or heart—that originally suggested the film has survived months of grueling work, varying levels of competence, arguments on the set, sleepless nights and decisions made between a rock and a hard place. So it is with “The Rockwell Code,” a well-polished spoof of Dan Brown’s best-selling “The Da Vinci Code.” Co-produced by Marc Dole of Hatchling Studios, the film’s release was timed to coincide with the release of the Hollywood version. The site www.thenormanrockwellcode.com has thus far received 970,000 hits.

From the start—a remarkably disturbing montage of Rockwell paintings (filmed at Mill River Custom Framing in Rollinsford)—through the puzzle solving with the help of an Ovaltine decoder ring, to a spine-tingling visit to a lobster pound (“That’s Taylor’s,” whispered one woman in the audience several times, naming the local lobster retailer where the scene was filmed), to the silly twist at the finish at York’s Nubble Light, it’s a remarkably fun ride.

Common missteps are avoided: the actors are generally relaxed and spontaneous, the sound is even, and Kristian Bernier’s cinematography is neither strained nor repetitive. The script has only a few minor holes that are easily forgiven, and the few groanworthy lines are charmingly cheesy.

Thanks to the well-paced editing of Brian Vawter, who also scored the film, the audience is quickly drawn into the batty detective chase that ensues. Protagonist Langford Fife, grandson of a much-referenced deputy sheriff of Mayberry, N.C., is that co-worker we all know who routinely overestimates his own worth. Sofa is more type than character, but Carlson uses her Quebecois accent to add a layer of aloofness. Charismatic TV personality Fritz Wetherbee is hilarious as the murdered curator, whose recorded secret confession is cleverly shown playing on a TV screen, and Ralph Napolitano (Ralph’s House of Tone) takes a disturbingly authentic turn as the twisted villain.

In short, “The Norman Rockwell Code” works. The story is fun as a spoof of the well-known plot, and it’s simply fun. And we don’t just know these people because they’re familiar faces. We know them the way you’re supposed to know characters in fiction—universal types that could be our friends or co-workers or, more pathetically, us. So forget what you’ve heard about “The Da Vinci Code” and what you think you know about local films. The folks at Web portal Lycos have—they’re picking up the film to distribute as part of their Internet video content. Meanwhile, Catalfo says he’s at work transforming the novel “Betrayed” by local novelist Brendan Dubois into a screenplay. He should hurry. He already has a theaterful of people who can’t wait to see it.