Although Sabina has tortured Katy throughout the movie she saves the most extreme for the end, reducing her rival to a disheveled and whimpering wreck. But the producers should get some credit for a glammed up Katy in the "Zapped" (1982) inspired final comeuppance scene. To appreciate the missed opportunity just check out Samantha's inspired abuse of rival Sheila Sommers (played by gorgeous Nancy Kovack) in several episodes of "Bewitched". And since Katy does not rank especially high on the queen bee badness scale Sabrina's extreme revenge is way out of proportion. Which makes their inevitable comeuppances almost sterile.
And Hart's rival Libby in the 1996-2003 series would be played by the even less sizzling Jenna Leigh Green. Which means that to stay remotely credible with viewers, the bad girl she plays off has to be several erotic levels below Megan Fox hence Tori Spelling lookalike Lalainia Lindbjerg as Katy Lemore (apparently a play on L'Amore). The problem with casting someone like Melissa Joan Hart as your good girl love interest is the absence of even a hint of physical sizzle. The story hedges a bit on this issue, as her magic is mostly used in response to unwarranted attacks by her rival but in several of the track & field events her cheating makes losers out of all the other participants and no attempt is made at rationalization or justification. Little effort is made to show her in any sort of quandary over her decision to cheat. Sabrina competes with other girls in track and field events winning several of them by using her powers to cheat.
More central for your thinking viewer are the moral dilemma and ethical considerations raised by the story. The friendship and coming-of-age elements are almost incidental to the story. Apparently there is a huge viewing demographic who on some basic level repeatedly get off erotically or emotionally on this humiliation dynamic. This teen movie belongs to the "high-school-queen-bee-gets-her-comeuppance" sub-genre of which there are endless examples. This premise sets up Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) to be a blend of "Bewitched" and "Mean Girls". "A girl, sent by her parents to live with her two eccentric aunts and attend a new high school, finds out on her sixteenth birthday that she is a witch". The movie runs 1 hour, 31 minutes and was shot in British Columbia with some establishing shots done in Brookline, Massachusetts (or so IMDb says). For those interested, Ryan Reynolds has a significant role he was 18-19 during filming. She was 19 years-old when this pilot was shot and just got more beautiful over the course of the series.
I've probably watched a dozen episodes of the subsequent series and the main draw was always Melissa's winsomeness. (It was amusing to learn why Salem can talk and other cats can't). The tone of the production is decidedly pedestrian in a mid-90's TV manner, but the cast brightens things up with their energy and a decent script. After her 16th birthday, Sabrina learns she's a witch and grapples with the morality of having powers other mortals don't. The plot revolves around Sabrina (Melissa Joan Hart) having to move from Massachusetts to live with her two eccentric aunts in Rockland County, New York, where she starts attending Riverdale High, becomes besties with Marnie (Michelle Beaudoin) and contends with requisite mean girl, Katy Lemore (Lalainia Lindbjerg).
Released to TV in spring 1996, "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" was the pilot movie for the series that ran for seven years from 1996-2003.