Review of director's cut

Rating: 6/10 (11 November 2019)

I don't get all the one star reviews. This film isn't terrible. In fact there's a vast amount of merit here, albeit alongside heapings of tripe.
Positives:

beautiful, masterful cinematography.
fantastic score.
top-notch acting.
claustrophobic levels of dread akin to Hereditary.
believable dialogue.
intricate and interesting plot / themes. Having read many other reviews berating the film for the lack of proper themes or story, I couldn't disagree more.

Negatives:

as the boyfriend guy is such a huge at every stage of the way, I absolutely don't buy that the other characters would give him the time of day. Why aren't his pals calling him out on the despicable way he treats his girlfriend?
sadly, for a film so lovingly crafted, there are so many baffling acts (or a lack of logical ones). Are we really meant to swallow that three of the group witness horrifying suicides then say nothing to the fourth guy, and that immediately afterwards two of them argue over their PhDs? Ridiculous.
the recurring head-gore trick as seen in Hereditary. I mean, yeah, OK once is effective, but it's exactly the same trick used again here, taking me out of the film to be offended by the gratuitous nature of its repetition.
I can take one scene of OTT sobbing, but several? No. Not everyone cries like that, and even if they do, surely not every single time they cry. Very jarring.
an incredibly secretive cult sends EVERY one of its members to live elsewhere in the world as a rite of passage? Nope.
continuing the tradition black guy being the first of our "heroes" to die. Zzzzzzzz. Also, the only other two minotry characters are "disappeared" before anyone else.