Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has some of the scariest moments of any of the books-- the Inferi! The return of Bane the werewolf! And, uh, a certain high-profile death that you probably know about but I won't spoil anyway. But despite all the potential for terror in the sixth movie, the latest Potter film has been given a PG rating, a rating it hasn't had since The Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004.

What gives? Most Potter fans were expecting the films to get increasingly darker and more adult as they went along, keeping pace with the development of the books themselves. The MPAA ratings report posted at Rope of Silicon gives no explanation for the rating beyond "scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality." Ha! Mild sensuality! You mean that one kiss between Ginny and Harry and Ron and Hermoine's ongoing sexual tension? That all seems practically G-rated to me.

I'm still looking forward to this movie-- duh-- but I'm perplexed by this rating. And if they're setting a precedent with a PG-rated sixth movie, how on earth are they going to deal with the seventh one, which is legitimately terrifying from beginning to end?