Witchcraft, at least cinematic witchcraft, has been either played for laughs or, with recent offerings like "The Witch", used as a dark, impressionistic metaphor for societal or personal fears. Something that is almost never portrayed is the idea of witchcraft being an albatross around the neck of the practitioner. "Bad Witch" does this through the lead character. Xander Perkins is a narcissistic tool who glides by on his looks by mooching off women and the occasional spell casting. But while other movies show witchcraft as an asset to characters, such as an instrument of revenge, the dark arts don't do Xander any favors. In fact, they make things worse. After a misguided spell results in a beat-down from the victim and his bros, Xander retreats to the house of a high school friend, swearing off the witchcraft and resolving to go straight. The drug terminology isn't accidental; the movie pointedly compares witchcraft to drug addiction, something not seen in other films. Rather than making Xander powerful and dangerous, witchcraft has seemed to make him lazy, self-absorbed, and constantly in trouble. This changes when, goaded by his friend to get a job, he befriends Roland, a nice kid who is bullied by a loutish jock and his friend. In an uncharacteristically empathetic move, Xander teaches Roland witchcraft, which at first seems to work: the jock gets the worst case of zits in the history of high school, and Roland gets to make it with the girl of his dreams--almost. Unlike Xander, Roland has a moral compass. He can't go through with the spell to make it with the girl, and even goes to apologize to her the next day (She doesn't remember it). This idyll doesn't last, as the ramifications of the spell casting snowball into a traumatic climax.
Incredibly, I detected a moral lesson here. Most movies steadfastly refuse to do it, but "Bad Witch" does. Witchcraft, even done for the right reasons (such as to right a wrong or get revenge on bullies) is inherently evil. Xander, despite his front of being a don't care hedonist, seems to have some sort of guilt about his craft: this is proven by the scenes in which he hallucinates that a TV preacher is screaming at him. This idea culminates in the finale, which has tragic repercussions for almost all of the characters. So maybe that is the final spell cast by "Bad Witch".
