Finally watched the director's cut. And it's just as I expected.

Too much plot, too little subtlety, and painfully obvious in its failure to connect theme to story, the added context is rendered through dialogue scenes that attempt to explain why the audience should be invested rather than establishing the narrative as believable through well-developed characters who can be expected to behave rationally; I'm still impressed by the depiction of the cult, but just as irritated by the perfunctory subplots of familial trauma and anthropological academia, neither of which are explored with any conviction or add anything more than excuses for plot mechanics.

In another age, this might've been considered a cult classic. But considering its instantaneous appraisal as a masterpiece, that ship has sailed and been set alight.