Prior to "Bad Dreams", Fleming's interests had primarily lain in the technical side of filmmaking, but after a hiatus to learn how to write, he resurfaced with his follow-up feature, "Threesome" (1994), an amusing coming-of-age college story. Boasting an attractive young cast (Lara Flynn Boyle, Stephen Baldwin and Josh Charles) caught up in a somewhat unconventional love triangle, the movie outstandingly and believably expressed the sex-saturated state-of-mind of 20-year-olds and represented a giant leap forward for the screenwriter. Solid tech contributions gave the independent feature the polished look of a bigger budget studio effort.
The refreshingly unpretentious writer-director "nailed" the high school experience for "The Craft" (1996), a supernatural thriller and black-comedy clone of "Heathers" (1989), featuring four toothsome "witches" (Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell, Rachel True) grounded in a realistic setting. Fleming's ship ran aground when it abdicated its strong narrative in favor of well-executed special effects, culminating in a showdown battle between Balk (in full-blown punk Medusa frenzy) and Tunney, the recent convert with a conscience. He continued in the high school milieu with "Dick" (1999), a period piece bringing two teenagers in contact with such Watergate era characters as President Nixon (Dan Hedaya), James Dean (Jim Breuer) and G. Gordon Liddy (Harry Shearer), among others.