The surprise success of The Devil Inside earlier this month has made studios eager to rush even more low budget horror films out the door, and in addition to Paranormal Activity 4, another sequel that will be hoping to capitalize on this continuing trend is The Last Exorcism 2. That probably won’t end up being the film’s final title, of course; producer Eli Roth has joked that coming up with a new title will be perhaps their biggest creative challenge. He also acknowledged that the original movie’s title clearly indicates that they never intended to make a sequel in the first place, but they just “love the story and subject matter” and they believe they have “an inspired idea to continue it.” One of the original film’s stars, Ashley Bell, will reprise her role as the possessed girl Nell, but director Daniel Stamm will not be returning. Instead he will be replaced by Canadian filmmaker Ed Gass-Donnelly (Small Town Murder Songs).

According to Deadline, the sequel will pick up three months after the first film, although the story itself is still being kept under wraps. What’s interesting, however, is that they’ve decided to up the rating from a PG-13 to a hard R for the follow-up, promising that it will be “profoundly scarier.” Eli Roth had this to say:

“As you can see from other recent films, fans around the world are fascinated by this subject matter, and we want to go deeper and darker this time. The first film worked great as a PG-13 psychological film, but now we want to go R-rated and show the true horror of what this subject matter offers.”

I worry that the lack of Reverend Cotton Marcus this time around will make it just another generic exorcism movie, but I suppose the twist ending of the first film leaves it open to just about anything. The movie is aiming for a late 2012 release. Are you looking forward to The Last Exorcism 2 and is the potential R rating a good thing?