In the film, whose main parodies are the Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer franchises, Cindy shares a role similar to Sidney Prescott and Julie James.

In Scary Movie 2, Cindy is attending college and with her friends, goes to Hell House for Professor Oldman's experiment.

In Scary Movie 3, where her role is based on Rachel Keller from The Ring, she is portrayed as a news presenter and has a nephew, Cody.

In Scary Movie 4, where she parodies Karen Davis from The Grudge, Cindy is working as a caregiver in a haunted house and attempts to stop an alien attack with the help of Brenda.

Faris did not return for Scary Movie 5 and Cindy was replaced by Ashley Tisdale's character, Jody Sanders.

Originally brunette, becoming blonde later, she is very caring for others, such as striving to protect people like Cody or even the rest of the world from watching the horror tape.

However, Cindy does have a more hostile side, even when she was a teenager, shown when she punched Gail Hailstorm in the face for telling her that her "ass looks fat."

Cindy also has a rather unfortunate track record when it comes to relationships, her first boyfriend, Bobby Prinze, constantly tried to pressure her into being intimate with him and was later revealed to be both gay and a murderer who later attempted to kill her.

She can also speak a form of "Mock Japanese," which Toshio remarks as terrible as it is just words such as Mitsubishi, Samurai, and Fujitsu thrown together.

The only people in Cindy's family who have appeared in the movies or are mentioned are her father (reportedly a drug dealer), her unnamed sister, a grandmother and her nephew, Cody Campbell.

When she flashes Bobby in the first film, she is shown to have a masculine torso with gross traits such as a hairy chest with flabby breasts, the ugly sight of her being topless causes him to fall out of the window.

Buddy also calls her "A-cup" after he punches her, and Shorty Meeks comments that her breasts are orangutan-like while the group gazes over Caroline's portrait.

While in the third film, Cindy who is now an attractive reporter, once tried to prove a point while arguing about breast augmentation by revealing to her boss and co-workers her now enlarged "twins", which they appear to be more bigger and more natural than Becka Kotler's silicone implants and features a "sloshing" sound of lactation when jiggled, Cindy also wears tight tops to prevent the distraction of males to the point where they throw a wild party, even at her own job.

The two realize their newfound love, but are interrupted by a gigantic triPod which disables electricity and starts vaporizing the town residents.

Cindy converses in mock Japanese with the haunted house's ghost, Toshio, learning that the answer of the invasion is his father's heart.

While Tom leaves the city with his children, Cindy reunites with her friend, Brenda Meeks, miraculously alive after her death (having been pieced back together by Mahalik).

[1] In an interview with People, it was revealed that Anna Faris beat out about hundreds of actresses who auditioned for the role of Cindy.

[4] Bruce G. Hallenbeck, in his book Comedy-Horror Films: A Chronological History, 1914–2008, described Faris as "the real discovery of Scary Movie, the one performer who tries valiantly to hold everything together".